Weekly Update

Supplements...

Need to get back on track. I've been feeling very "blah" and I need to get to Harvest Health and pick up some thyroid supplement and refill all of my supplement thingies.

So...I stopped in Frankenmuth...

to see if somebody sold drop spindles and could help me fix the one with the missing hook.

No...but I did happen into Zeilinger Wool Co. and ended up with a pretty large bag (at least a pound) of wool/alpaca blend with a 3-way dye job (white alpaca with Romney sheep in chestnut and yellow sun)

I'm using the Greensleeves small spindle (the hook was fixed with a large safety pin bent around into a hook) and I'll end up with it 3-ply.

Any Tool Can Be the Right Tool

My first try at making a drop spindle.

Materials:

• 1 wooden wheel
• 1 dowel
• wood paint
• triple thick gloss glaze
• paint brush
• fine sand paper
• tacky glue
• one milk shake from Arby's
• 1 cup hook

1. drink the milk shake (Chocolate Mocha Malt) and wash the glass
2. lightly sand the dowel and wheel
3. glue the dowel into the wheel and put it in the glass with the dowel through the straw hole (this only works when the hole is in the middle of the lid)
4. wait for the glue to dry completely, then carefully screw the hook into the top end of the dowel
5. you now have an unfinished drop spindle - paint it.
6. when the paint is dry, lightly sand it and finish with a coat or two of Triple Thick Brilliant Brush-on Gloss Glaze.

All material (except for the milk shake) is available at Hobby Lobby.

Learn to Spin Cotton

All righty then...

I ordered a "box" (it ended up being a plastic deli thing, only about a gallon big) of cotton that was advertised as "learn to spin cotton". It came with a lovely little takhli (bottom whorl, all metal support spindle) and several varieties of cotton.

Imagine my surprise when I opened the shipping carton and saw:


But it got better! I didn't know (or maybe knew, but it didn't matter) that cotton grew in different colors. In this box was cotton in various stages of preperation for spinning, including 3 balls of roving (perfect and ready to spin) in 3 different colors.





There's a bigger learning curve in spinning cotton, but once I got the hang of the short draft it got easier. I need to see somebody using a support spindle, I'm still using it like a drop spindle and using the park and draft method.

Started Spinning...

I've been spinning some lovely dyed wool, but misplaced the tag so I don't know exactly what it is. I suspect the label is in the bottom of my "night box" where I keep any knitting for when I'm watching TV.

Anyway...today I opened a bag of Louet (brand name) merino silk blend (80% merino wool, 20% silk) the color is "oriental jade". It is a beautiful shade of teal-ish blue with white fiber carded in.

It is very silky and has a long staple - 3-4"

I thought I'd use it with the wool from the first paragraph - but golly...every time I start a fresh spindle my thread gets more consistent. I think this wool may warrant a garment all by itself.

Sock of the Week - check. Next week's "official" sock is nearly done (you'll see it next week)

On the spining front...

I bought a bag of alpaca fiber - the animal's name is "Juan" and the color pathway is called "blue sheen".

Here's Henry spending quality time with Juan's long, silky hair...

.

.(the fiber spun onto a drop spindle - it's counter intuitive, but the lighter the spindle, the finer the thread; I think because it spins faster.
This is how fine it's spinning up. This is a single ply thread - when all the fiber is spun, two balls will be spun together with the spindle going in the opposite direction of the single ply - this is called "worsting", making worsted yard.


My first experience with spinning was with sheep's wool
after worsting and washing

Close up

wound into a ball

and being knit into a scarf with a cable twist