Apples

Lively color on a gray rainy day. I admired these wooden (!) apples at a friend's house some time ago and thought they would brighten the day.
Knitting group today, almost everyone showed up though two of our members are still out of town. We miss them and the inspiration they bring with them.
So now my challenge is whether to finish the Monkey socks or to cast on a lace weight mohair cardigan..hmmm..

Live and learn

I have long contended that 'I am not a technical spinner'. I was taught to spin many moons ago in a one day workshop using wool 'in the grease' and a heavy drop spindle. My interest (read: obsession) quickly led to my purchasing my first spinning wheel. The simple Ashford. I remember bringing it home in its box, having to assemble it and finish it, all with the help and support of DH. Then, what do you do? Begin learning by experience how to treadle the thing, oops, how to adjust the tension so that the fiber doesn't get sucked onto the bobbin before it has been spun, how to do the seeming myriad of adjustments all at the same time, oh my, it was fun! I spent an entire day with a friend and expert knitter and spinner learning the long draw, what an advance that was. It was learning through imitation, though, and not thoroughly understanding 'why' what was happening.
From the Ashford I moved to the Louet wheel S-10. Larger bobbin. 3 speeds. Used it for a long time. Then took an even longer hiatus. When I came back to spinning for lack of exposure to anything else at the time I continued with the Louet. Years later I had the wonderful experience of meeting some local spinners who were willing to adjust their meeting night so that I could join them. They taught me a lot. From them I got into a charkha workshop with Eileen Hallman, which essentially taught me how to spin off the point of a spindle. They also demonstrated using combs to prepare fiber. Deadly looking things but oh! How effective! Succumbed only to a purchase of mini-combs due to budget considerations at the time.
After this I was introduced to knitting with energized singles in a Kathryn Alexander workshop and was frustrated as my wheel was a bit slower than I needed it to be, so Kathryn suggested I try the Lendrum wheel and the fast flyer rather than the standard one. I have been happy with this wheel ever since, however, I maintained my status as a not 'technical' spinner. All this wpi and tpi and angle of twist was a bit out of my league, and with relocating I let my spinning go once again. Until.
Well, until once again I met up with some local knitters, one of whom was conversant with spinning and weaving and encouraged me in my efforts to spin skinnier yarns. My goal was to get something more lace weight, and in time I achieved this.
Finally I decided that it was time to become a more technical spinner and amongst other things I downloaded two dvds from Interweave: "How I Spin", Rita Buchanan's workshop, great information! And Judith MacKenzie McCuin's "A Spinner's Toolbox". Simply brilliant! Here at last was a clear explanation with visuals of the 'why' of things. I understand! I can use this and have been using it. The photo above shows recent spinning efforts. The three skinny skeins are results of spinning the sampler pack of fibers. The dark is Alpaca, the middle skein is one ply baby camel and one ply camel and silk, and the very pale skein is merino and cashmere, yum! All spun worsted, forward draw.
The big 'beast' of a skein on the left was from a roving I purchased years ago, and was supposed to be of leftovers from the large carding machines in a yarn manufacturer's factory. They called it the 'beast' Following what I learned from Judith's dvd, I spun it woolen, long draw, and  plyed it, 3 ply. Then I had the fun of finishing it, counter-intuitively, plunging it in hot soapy water with a sink plunger and then placing it in cold water before putting it back in the hot soapy water and rinsing it well in cold water, then after removing excess water, thwacking it on the kitchen counter hard, both ends of the skein. Wow! It works!
So, live and learn!

Projects lined up

Monkey socks (Cookie A.'s) half way down the leg, the Merino/Sea-cell roving for the China Jade yarn before spinning, and Malabrigo yarn in a bolero called 'Gypsy' from Leigh Radford's Cardigans book...and that's just for starters. Do other people suffer so much from 'start-itis'?

Beach Glass...

Another dye job..reminds me of bits of glass you sometimes find on the beach, blues and greens.

I am finding that I have so many skeins of handspun right now that I need to start knitting. However, my fingers still itch to spin and spin and spin. I came across a box of fibers from a sampler pack with many different fibers; this was a gift from a dear friend some years ago. I am glad that I waited til now to spin the fibers, most of them anyway, as I feel that I have more skills to deal with them now than I had at the time. So, perhaps if I budget my time carefully I can spin and knit. We'll see.

In the meantime I've been reminiscing..remembering something my father showed me and my brothers and sister when we were little..You hold your hands in front of your face about 8 to 12 inches away with index fingers pointing towards each other. Then you focus, not on your fingers but slightly above and beyond them. The optical illusion is that you have a little finger in between the two index fingers. If you move your fingers slightly apart it looks as if there is a cocktail weenie floating in mid-air. A great way to entertain youngsters and keep them out of the kitchen where certainly mom was busy preparing a meal. I even remember that we were on the balcony and it was a beautiful sunny day. Memories....