24th & 25th July - The blue merino/cashmere singles were spun, then skeined, washed and thwacked this morning. To be honest, I spun about 20m on Saturday morning, then went to London to watch a show, and didn't come back until Sunday evening... Can you tell I spun like a crazy woman? It's nowhere near as even as my older handspun yarns, but I have been trying to spin thicker lately and it's taking time for my hands to learn to ease up on the drafting!
So, now that it's over, I'm feeling quite proud of myself. I wish that I had more time to spend on my wheel, but taking into account that I have spun more in these three weeks than I have in months I'm satisfied that I made a decent enough dent in my fibre stash!
The chunkies:
Saturday 17th July - Plying all done! I'm really happy with how these turned out, 2 skeins, approximately 200g/180m. They look a little too tight for my liking at the moment but I'm sure that after a good Wash & Thwack they will fluff up nicely!
Sunday 18th & Monday 19th July - I spent two evenings pre-drafting the merino/cashmere tops (70/30, from MandaCrafts, Red Hot Chilli Pepper Colourway) that I had originally planned to spin a laceweight yarn with. With time being a bit too short, I settled for a sock/fingering weight single instead. I might make a small shawl or gloves out of this.
Saturday 10th July - I blended the prepped fibres into multicoloured batts in order to create smooth transitions from one colour to another when spinning. The extra carding also made sure that the yak was more evenly distributed within the cormo.
Sunday 11th July - I began spinning the batts into thick and thing medium weight singles, I enjoyed the effect of the little 'bubbles' of yak down, however they were easily pulled off so I made a note to slightly full the yarn when I'm done so they don't fall off when knitting with the skein. I spun just a little more than what is shown on the photo, then I got up and starting planning my 'rest' day!
Saturday 3rd July - Began to fluff up and card my funky grey mystery wool. I added a little more life to the dull, grey, mass by blending it in with some hand-dyed alpaca I had lying around.I had to take off and go to a birthday celebration soon after taking this shot so I didn't get around to finishing.
Sunday 4th July - All the wool has been carded! I used up all my dyed alpaca from my 'leftovers pile'! There was pink, purple, black, and a beigey yellow. Nothing got spun that day, I was nursing a very bad neck sprain (sustained the night before due to too much headbanging to great music), and I couldn't look down to see what I was doing.