I’ve fallen in love!!! The spindle is a spinner’s best friend, IMO. Just recently Spinsanity commented to me that a lot of people see spindling as a stepping stone of sorts to the “real” spinning on a wheel. I have to shamefully admit that, until recently, I was one of those people. I really had a lot of trouble getting it together when it came to spindle spinning. My singles were always lumpy bumpy and just not pretty. Then I got Penelope
My baby...well, okay my second baby. Can
and after some rough starts, it all started to come together for me. I felt like I was actually learning to spin for real. This reinforced the notion that the spindle was a stepping stone and not a very good one at that. Boy was I wrong. Recently, I picked up a few more spindles from Spinsanity in exchange for some fiber at the Michigan Fiber Festival (I’m still waiting on my kokopeli one, but she’s busy and I’m not in a hurry) and when I got home I really wanted to try out the square one I’d been coveting for some time.
Tweaky guarding the spindle and fiber
For some reason, something just clicked for me at this point and all of a sudden, I could spin on a spindle. So, in my case anyway, the spinning wheel was a stepping stone for the spindle. Now I find that as much as I love Penelope, I spin more often than not on the spindles. It’s a lot easier to control the amount of spin as well as being a hell of a lot more portable. Right now I have a gorgeous soysilk/wool blend on one of my spindles from Flawful Fibers called Trinket that is spinning like a dream. I’m spinning it at 30 wpi and trying to decide whether to keep it laceweight or to ply it into something like a dk weight. I still don’t have a lot of experience plying fiber, but I’m willing to try. On deck is a colorway called Teddybear Trio from DK Knits that is going to be Spirogyra mitts from Knitty.com. There was a great article in the same issue about spinning for these mitts that inspired me and I’m going to give it a whirl. This is the first time that I’ve spun something for a specific purpose and I’m thrilled and terrified at the same time. Yay/Ugh. I think I’m going to use a round spindle as opposed to my square one for this, though, as I have a tendecy to get fiber caught and ultimately broken on the square corners when winding on and I don’t want to do that.
As for the this and that…I had planned to go to Zombie Prom Date Knitting this past week, but it didn’t work out b/c of work on the new house. I’m going to miss all the knitting activities for the next few weeks b/c we’re leaving Saturday morning for a three week trip to AZ to visit TJ’s grandparents who haven’t seen Jake since he was 4 months and then on to my mother’s for a visit and a trip to Sea World San Diego with Jake, which I know he’ll adore given his obsession with all sea creatures, but especially sharks and whales. We’ll be back in mid-December and then will be busting our humps to get everything ready b/c I, like the dumbass I am, insisted that my mother in law and Tj’s aunts come to our house for Christmas this year. I’m nervous as all hell, but I’m also really excited. After that, though, I’d really like to host a knit night at our new house. I’d love for the ZPDK people (are you reading this Holly and Shannon?!?! What do you think? I’d love some feedback and advice) I figure since I haven’t been a very social knitter and I love my knitting peeps, I’d have them over, ply them with food and booze and knitting and get their love back. Seriously, though, I just want to have my girlfriends over to knit and drink and eat the goodies I’m going to make in my new kitchen. I’ve never hosted something like this, or anything really, so any advice about what to make etc. would be much appreciated. It would mean the world to me to have you guys there. So please, please, please say yes!!!! Let me know what you think. I’ll have access to the computer for the next few days and then (gasp) no internet access for the whole trip as this Toshiba piece of shit (that I’ve had since July) is going into the shop b/c the power cord doesn’t want to give me power. My cell number, should you want to call to talk about the logistics is 269-779-4755 (If I get too many crank calls from putting it out here, I’ll just change it as it’s a new number and really no one has it yet, LOL) so let me know. I’ll cross post the knitting night info on the ravelry board for ZPDK.
For those of you I won’t see/talk to before the holidays, have a great time. Love you all!!!!
Knitting for my Sanity 