Adventures in spinning.

After a few weeks with the wheel, I have two "completed" skeins of yarn (and I use that term loosely).

My first attempt, spun from Mauch Chunky roving and finished a couple of weeks ago, vaguely resembles yarn:



I've been working off and on (more off) on some Ashland Bay Colonial Wool roving since I finished the first yarn. I spun the last of that roving into singles today:



I had some trouble with my yarn tangling while I was plying on the Kromski's built-in kate, so Carol (feistywoman on Ravelry) suggested that I tie a bit of yarn around both of my bobbins at the whorl while they were on the kate, and it helped a lot:



I think that I'll still invest in a proper tensioned kate at some point, but this was a great quick and inexpensive substitute for now. Thanks, Carol!

After plying the singles and skeining, I was left with some pretty unbalanced yarn, so I soaked it, whacked it, and that seemed to help a lot:



The yarn is still not great, but it's definitely looking better. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to practice more! ;)

Even with all of this spinning, I have not forsaken commercial yarns. Let's just say I had a bit of a falling down this weekend:



Natural Stitches recently got in a shipment of Dream in Color Smooshy, and of course I had to go check it out in person. That yarn makes me feel all dizzy. In a good way.

Let me sum up.

Whew. It's been such a long time since I last posted, so let me sum up. I do have an actual finished object(s) to share:



Pattern: Fetching by by Cheryl Niamath
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran, color 300008
Mods: worked regular bind off instead of picot

These mitts were a Christmas gift for Lori, and doesn't she look just fetching in them? Hurricane Knitters, you will be glad to know that, true to my obsessive-compulsive nature, I had to rip out the first finished mitt and restart them so that the hand opening was bound off more tightly.

Speaking of Christmas, Santa was very good to me this year. I got some new pieces of my favorite cookware, some fabulous new cookbooks, and lots of other beautiful things that are too numerous to list here. We were able to spend time with both sides of our family and had a wonderful, if not exhausting, day all around. I am so lucky!

Why else am I lucky? There's this:



That was wrapped around this(!):





Isn't she just lovely? Thankfully, since I've never spun before, the wheel included a video on how to set up your wheel, and how to start spinning. Note the confused look on my face as I give the wheel a whirl and watch the video:





Oh dear. I think I am going to need some more practice!

Happy birthday to me.

After driving everyone around me crazy by talking about it for weeks, I went ahead and bought myself a birthday gift. Eeek! No word yet on when it will arrive, but hopefully I'll be spinning by Christmas (or at least trying to). :)