Spindlitis

I received the latest spindle order yesterday. This puts me up to six Bosworths! I am making up for lost time. First up, two skinny Cherry maxis and one skinny Cherry mini.

The cherry midi is 18 grams. I need to test it out on finer fiber. The two maxis will be my go to plying spindles, although they are light enough to use for regular projects.

And this batch are my butternuts! I don’t know why I have this fascination with butternut wood, but I do.

I have a regular Butternut maxi with a walnut shaft, a regular Butternut Midi with a walnut shaft and the skinny Butternut Midi with a walnut shaft that was my first purchase. I just like the lighter whorl with the dark shaft. There’s an interesting difference in the skinny versus regular midi. The regular has a slightly slower spin but longer. It’s likely due to the slightly heavier whorl. There’s a six gram difference between the two. I’m expecting the two Midis to be my workhorse spindles. I already reach for the skinny Midi for any new project. The Maxi is a nice plying spindle, when I need something heavier. I have to keep the weight down on it, but it works fine if I ply about two ounces at a time.

And this is my first finished yarn!

This is the dyed corriedale I was spinning on the cherry Midi. I plied it on the butternut maxi. It’s three ply and I used my plying stick to ply. The plying stick is so much better than tennis balls. I wrap the singles on it, like I’d wrap on a nostepinne. When you ply, the twist will run up the yarn to the point where it’s touching the stick. It stops there. The stick is lightweight and easy to hold. I can set the project down and pick it up later, without getting anything messed up. It fits my style of spinning.

I’m trying to finish a couple of knitting projects that need to be done by the weekend. Abraham’s birthday is tomorrow, so the baby sweater needs to be finished. And his mom’s birthday was last week, so I’m giving her the socks I started. I’m close to finishing those. When I get those two projects done, I’ll be ready to start knitting handspun socks. I’ve finished a couple of skeins of hand dyed yarn and the grey corriedale is about halfway finished. I want to spindle spin one of the six ounce bags of roving I bought for socks. These yarns are thicker than commercial sock yarns, so maybe the socks will be a bit faster to knit.

First up, my cool new tool. It’s a plying stick.

I learned about these on Sarah Swett’s site. It’s like a nostepinne and replaces the plying ball. The ridges hold the ball on the stick. You wrap the singles together on the stick, just like you would with a nosty. Then you ply off it. This one is walnut. And here’s the link: https://www.etsy.com/listing/262781967/plying-wandstick-made-to-order?ref=shop_home_active_2

She also makes lovely tapestry bobbins and nostepinnes.

Next up is some finished yarn. I posted this on Rav. This is the spindle spun fractal, Three Waters Farm colorway Spring By Way in Finn.

I divided the fiber in half, then split one of those into four sections horizontally. I put each piece in a bag, labeled AA to AD. The second section was split into four long vertical. These went into the bag, after the first four were spun. It was easy to see which color to start with since these all started at the same end. Next up, the two singles wrapped on a ply ball, in the correct order:

Finally, the plied yarn. I plied this on the new Bosworth Maxi.

No idea what I’ll make with this but the colorway is wonderful.

I also plied up some Bam Huey. I received a sample of this with a Jenkins spindle. I like it, so ordered 4 ounces. I believe it’s BFL. This is another project that disappeared for awhile. The main part had felted slightly and the pieces I’d spun  were out of order. So it’s not a great looking gradient.

And I’m spinning up two ounces of dyed Corriedale. They call this teal, but it’s more sea green to me. This is the Bosworth cherry skinny maxi. I have found that I love the skinnies!

Last is Hipstring’s Flannel Jammie on my Bosworth butternut skinny midi. I don’t normally like merino, but this is really a nice blend. I think the colors are perfect.

I am getting closer to starting the sweater project. Still trying the new tools out and I have one more spindle order to place. And I am working on something new for this site. More on that to follow.