Last Tuesday I bought eight ounces of fiber at our guild meeting, immediately went home and started spinning. I’m a binge kind of person. Just never knew it would be spinning. Food, stash acquisition, even drinking at times, but spinning?
The fiber is 50/50 merino and silk. There were some lessons in that fiber. It was the silk that started going static on me, or was it the merino? The fiber spread out and opened like a flower while drafting and spinning. Attaching itself to anything I wore. I wonder if that messed with my washing machine? Another story. Every piece of clothing I wore was covered in fine fiber I was hoping our washing machine would take care of.
What to do? I could spray the fiber with water but thought differently. I got a big sheet of paper and put that on my lap, it worked. I tried spinning fine, but since I’m still a beginner, my fine is not as thin as I thought. But I might be down to sport weight. Of course this makes me wonder about spinning fingering weight. Perhaps another spinning lesson would help. If I spin any finer I feel like I’m making thread. I’ll keep at it and one day will turn another spinning corner.
Not sure if this is true, but there might be a sweet spot of fiber weight. I hate the sweet spot phrase but it seems so appropriate here. Every time I reached that sweet spot, the fiber shone and seemed absolutely perfect. It would take lots of tries to see if I am on to something. Could be there are lots of sweet spots in a fiber and could be that changes with the spinner. I’m too old to experiment with that, considering all the variables, and would rather use my time in other ways.
For now, see what I accomplished:
Finally the color is cooperating somewhat. Imagine a little more pastel. I did overspin, a recommendation. I did another experiment with this fiber. I spun the singles counter clockwise. I’ve read in several places now that this might be advantageous to continental knitters. I did ply clockwise.
The same fiber in another color is spun the regular way, the singles clockwise and I will ply counter clockwise. Then I will knit exactly the same cowl and report back if there is a difference that someone like me would even notice. I don’t doubt there might be a difference, but honestly, I’ll never be expert enough or German enough to be that OCD. But there might be a surprise in this experiment.
Here is the other color:
The cowl uses very little yarn and is called Zuzu’s Petals, a design by Carina Spencer. Apparently I like her designs because when I looked I noticed I had others by her.
No pictures of the plied yarn yet. And it will all have to wait until Wednesday. The next couple of days are booked and I’ll write about those upcoming adventures later in the week.
One adventure I did not have plans to go on was dealing with the washing machine today. It’s not spinning anymore. Is there a message?
As usual I tried fixing it but the problem is tools. There are several screws in the back that need to come off, but I don’t have the right little allen wrenches. I put the blame on my son who loves to use my tools but with time that particular tool drawer is missing lots of useful pieces. It’s a magic drawer to begin with. One can put an infinite amount of tools in it and no matter what, there is always room for one more. At one point I noticed that some drawer overflow has landed in the cabinet below. But let’s ignore that. It took me a few hours to clean and organize this magical drawer because though it holds a lot, it does not stay organized.
Back to the non-spinning washer, I imagine some belt problem. But I’m not about to fix that. I will actually call someone. Even though the garage is an embarrassing mess, I don’t have a repair in me at this point. When our newish fridge gave up a few months ago I called a few appliance repair folks from the phone book and the one I liked most immediately asked if this fridge was in an unheated garage (check), and told me to wait out the cold weather. And he was right, the fridge turned back on when it got warmer, apparently a fridge can get colder but not deal with temps colder and warm up. This guy saved us lots of money and this is the guy who’ll get a phone call about the washing machine.
Our heater might be acting up, too. But we just changed the filter and we hope to get lucky. As long as the heater turns on and off, no matter what noises it makes while doing so, nobody will touch it. This modern living is not as easy at times as we think.
My health is somewhat deteriorating. I’ve had shortness of breath for a while. Yes, I should have gone seen a doctor with the heart issues I have, but what can one say to a person that starts knitting faster hoping not to run out of yarn that way. You see?
I’ve had a mild cold or allergies since December. Constantly sneezing, coughing, tickly throat, definitely feels like allergies. But I also have breathing problems while walking uphill. OK, OK, I always have breathing problems while going uphill, but this is more severe. Almost asthma like or heart attack like. I used to have asthma, could it have come back? Or is it a pulmonary embolism? My mind is going in many directions with that, but a lack of enough air can do this to you.
Finally, I made an appointment with my doctor for Tuesday. Usually, following a lifelong pattern, I will show no symptoms then and will feel better than ever. Will keep you posted.
