More spinning!

Are y'all getting tired of this yet? Because I'm not. And I haven't much else to show you. I've started a new lace project, and it's coming along, but it doesn't look like much and I've got it all bunched up on a 24" needle, so I can't really spread it out and show you. No nupps on this one, but it is Estonian lace and uses a lot of the same k1, yo, k1, yo, k1, yo, k1, yo, k1 in the same stitch maneuvers. And, I gotta tell ya, I don't know if it's that or the crocheting of dishcloths or both, but my right shoulder is really taking a beating. So every day I tell myself no crochet or lace, and every day I sit down and think, "well, just a little," and then the next morning I wake up and can't turn my head to the right and swear I'll take the day off. But spinning still doesn't hurt, so that's a good thing.

Here's the first fiber to come off the new wheel. It's the llama that I purchased at the fiber fest. In retrospect, I should have started with a more familiar fiber on the new wheel, but what's done is done. I'm not entirely happy with it, and I don't know whether it's the fiber or my growing pains. All I know is it's not an airy woolen-spun and it's not a smooth worsted-spun and it just feels kind of heavy and lifeless. DH still likes it, though, and still wants a hat. I suspect it will look a lot better when it's knit up.

It's a three-ply and I should have just about enough for a hat. I got myself in one of those awkward positions when I was plying where the wheel just wouldn't take up, so I'd pull out more singles and let the twist flow up, adjust the tension and try again, and still, no take up. I was completely tangled up in yarn before I realized that the drive band wasn't over the bobbin. (Doh!) I don't know how it happened, but I think it means that spinning four ounces of fiber and trying to ply it is perhaps a little more than I can handle in one day.

For my second try, I chose some BFL I had purchased from AllSpunUp on Etsy (I like how she doesn't name her colorways). I think this was still the day of the wheel's arrival and my husband and I had gone out for dinner and margaritas and we came home and I was all, "My spinning wheel! Let me show you it!" So I pulled out the fiber and split it in half and spun a little bit for him. I chose the high speed whorl to see what it would do. Then later I was kind of stuck with that decision.

I decided to do the fractal thing and spun the one bobbin I had started from the end and split the other half several ways and spun them on the other bobbin. Because of the way the yarn was dyed, though, I didn't end up with a whole lot of solid-color portions. You can't tell in the skein, but the beginning is mostly green and the end is mostly the red/rose colors. I could use it for socks, but they'd be fraternal in the extreme.

I have about 520 yards of 22-wpi 2-ply. I'd call that a light fingering weight. I'm not entirely sure what I'll do with it just yet. I'm tempted to make an EZ garter stitch moebius, but I kind of also want to branch out from scarves, hats, and socks for my handspun. Any other ideas? There's not much on Ravelry for 500 yards of light fingering that isn't socks.

The ply twist might be a little funky on this as well, because about the time I was halfway through plying, I found (gasp! horror!) dirty footprints on my treadles. The Schacht is oil finished, not varnished, and my bare feet were leaving some grime behind. I cleaned it off and switched to a socks-for-spinning policy, but the ones I chose were slippery on the treadles and it was a completely different feel.

On the wheel is some bamboo from my Zen String fiber club. I'm spinning laceweight singles straight from the roving for really long color shifts, and I think I'll make a Montego Bay Scarf with it.