Do you ever have one of those days where you are just moody and tired and no particular fiber or project appeals to you new or old?

That’s my day today. I don’t want to knit, I don’t want to spin what I’ve started, I am exhausted and not quite sure what to do with myself.

I did bike last night though. Unfortunately, a clear radar turned into a nice big storm, soaking me through and causing a much shorter ride than anticipated. Biking would probably be about the only thing that could kick me into a better mood tonight too, but that is unlikely to happen I think.

So, instead, I figure I can get a blog post in. Once I finished up the chameleon colorworks merino, I had trouble choosing my next braid. The conversation with myself, as I was digging through my fiber stash was rather comedic. “This? Nah, How about this? Nope, do not want. And this one? This one is pretty. Nope, not feelin’ it. And this? So not the kind of spinning I want to do right now.” Comedic and a bit irritating, as my stash is certainly large enough to handle any whim. Well, I found my Cloudlover braid, colorway Printemps. I purchased this in a fiber stash acquisition melding of the minds with KnittingSarah. (You can see the fiber she purchased from Dyeabolical all spun up here, all gorgeous and bouncy and spun up!) So I decided it was time to break out of the rut that is my fiber stash and see how the Cloudlover spun. This one headed to my support spindles, and since I’ve been seeing a ton of fractal spins lately, I decided I’d be more organized than usual and do a fractal 2 ply as well.

And we have the very beginnings of a project. Which I have no intention of working on this evening.

Last evening I ran out of time. I’d intended to have an extra skein to show off today, but last evening just didn’t have enough hours in it. So, instead, I’ve got singles. Again.

Yep, 4 oz of merino singles from a chameleon colorworks braid I began working on quite some time ago. This one was such a surprise to me. I expected not to like it. I expected that the compacted nature of the braid would mean I’d have trouble drafting it. I figured I didn’t love the colors. All of these things were incorrect assumptions about the fiber. It was a joy to spin. Hopefully I’ll have the opportunity to finish the last of the plying shortly. It is looking very good so far.

I’ve had a ton of time for spinning and fun this weekend.

I’ve done a bunch of cooking, and last night was probably the best meal I’ve ever had. Jeremy and I had decided on a meal plan, combining some food we’ve already tried together but with new twists. We had my favorite salad with homemade dressing, but it came out the best it has ever been. I also had Jeremy roast a bunch of garlic, so we had roasted garlic noodles with parmesan cheese. Over that we had grilled chicken, and I do believe it was the best chicken I”ve ever tasted. Such a beautiful, healthy, and deliciously satisfying meal.

I also made mojitos with mint from my garden and they were just as delicious as the meal. A win all the way around!

Prior to the amazing meal, I’d taken the opportunity to do a little single track biking. This is something new to my biking repertoire, so it is currently a huge challenge. Each time I go out I see improvement in confidence and ability. However, yesterday my confidence seemed to exceed my ability, causing a tumble.

Doesn’t look too bad right? This is before it swelled up and got a bit infected. It is back under control now, and no major damage done. My first single track injury, and I am ridiculously proud of it. No one can say I don’t try!

There’s also been spinning. Notably, I finished plying the inglenook batt singles. I ended up with 210 yards of a gradient. Spinning on two spindles, just alternating chunks from the batt worked even better than I expected, making a well blended gradient with no particular color barberpoling badly.    I’d call it a DK weight yarn.

I think this is just so gorgeous!

I actually finished spinning singles for another project as well, and hope to do a little plying today.

How was everyone’s long weekend? I hope you were all able to relax a bit this weekend!

I finished the last of the bamboo I have in my stash. I am so thrilled to be done with it! Light and lofty, I have 200 yards of a worsted weight single.

As I mentioned before, this one surprised me. It isn’t at all like what I’ve come to expect bamboo blends to spin like. I don’t love the feel of it still, but it didn’t act limp at all.

I’ve been spinning like mad on other projects this weekend as well, so I am excited about all the fun yarn I get to post about in the upcoming week!

I love all the potential contained in a set of singles not yet plied. It gives me great joy to see them sitting there all ready to go.

These particular singles are from an inglenook batt called Jalapeno Peppers. They are thick and thin and slubby and whatever they want to be. I didn’t force them into submission at all. I can’t WAIT to see what the finished two ply looks like!  It will be a gradient. I pulled strips from the gradient batt and alternated between two spindles. This seemed to work fairly well for blending into new colors, but there will be some harsher transitions.

Sadly, they will have to wait. I need to finish up what is currently on the wheel (bamboo blend!) before I ply these. And since it is a ride night, there won’t be any spinning this evening.

Out of my goal to use up the tencel and bamboo blends in my stash, I’ve got one down, one to finish. I chain plied the merino/tencel from Chameleon Colorworks on Sunday during an evening, post storm, spin on the porch. It went fairly quickly as I only have 132 yards of this one.

And then I went to wash and finish it. It is interesting that KnittingSarah and I were just recently discussing what can be done when a handspun yarn bleeds terribly on finishing. I suggested a glug of vinegar in the rinse water. I don’t usually do it, but if I am sure something will bleed, it is worth a try.

Turns out, this finished yarn bled like crazy. Even after rinsing, it made a terrible dark grey mess all over the tub under where it was hanging. And I can’t help but think that this muddied the colors a bit. It might be my imagination.

That there is such a thing as navajo 4 ply? Yeah, I didn’t either until recently. Of course, once I read about it, I determined I’d need to try it as soon as possible.

The concept is simple. You chain ply while holding a separate single at the same time and plying it in. I decided to try it with my saxon wool spin. I’d spun forever on the singles, as they drafted out quite thin. On Sunday I had time to ply on my wheel.

The concept may be simple. The execution a bit more like spinning performance art. Slightly pointless but pretty cool. It all goes well if you can set the separate single to the side, away from the single that you are chain plying. If they mingle, things get ugly quickly and there is really no returning from it. Suddenly it seems more like auto wrapped art yarn.

I was able to estimate fairly well though, as to how fast my chain ply single was being used up, and toward the end, I could see I’d have a ton left over of the separate single. So I just switched the single I was chain plying toward the end, and ended up with less than half a yard of leftover singles. That was amazing.

I really am not sure that I’ll try this little trick again, but it was fun to experiment with. The resulting yarn really isn’t the prettiest. It isn’t terribly well spun. But it is soft and I like the natural color and I am very glad I gave it a try.

I now have 212 yards of 4 ply (or 2 ply since one is chained?) and a new trick under my belt.

This entire weekend consisted of spinning. While Bug is feeling better now, we just stayed in and stayed relaxed. The weather was beautiful on Sunday and so I finished spinning the merino/tencel singles I started Saturday morning. And grabbed a photo.

I did get these plied as well, but apparently tencel takes a long time to dry, as well as being limp. 🙂

After finishing the lemony gradient, I made the decision to remove and spin anything in my stash that I truly disliked spinning. This, for the most part, includes bamboo and tencel blends. Thankfully, once I looked through my stash, I realized I only have 2. One a tencel blend and the other a bamboo blend. The one I chose first is Chameleon Colorworks, and I’ve had it in my stash since 2007 or 2008. It is high time to spin it anyhow!

In braid form, I actually didn’t realize, in all these years, that there is some green in there! It is almost entirely hidden by the label. So, actually spinning this has been a bit of a surprise, colorwise. Though not irritation wise, quite frankly.

While I always tell people that there is no “hard’ fiber to spin (with perhaps the exception of dryer lint or dust bunnies, but that hardly counts) I do think spinners should try all manner of fibers and then make their preferences, realizing that those preferences may change in time.

My preference is that I choose to avoid bamboo and tencel. I don’t like the way the yarn finishes up, as beautiful as it may be. I don’t like the way it spins up, the artificial nature of it messes with how the wool acts and I don’t care for that. It isn’t a problem of being difficult, though it takes getting used to, the problem is more how the fiber acts. It acts limp. I guess you could call it drapey, but I am going to call it limp.

(Please don’t let this stop you from trying it, try it, you might like it. Like some people enjoy eating chocolate covered locusts and all…just those some people aren’t me.)

In any case, I began spinning this braid yesterday morning as there is a nasty little noro virus going around, and I am not talking the yarn brand type, and poor Bug has been very ill. Her desire to sleep in my bed and be left alone equals coffee and spinning time on my porch.

I’d say it is going pretty well. For chocolate covered locusts, that is.

Due to the pink and purple toned rolags being a color combo I wasn’t sure was going to go well together if striping, and being that I had so many colors in a small amount of singles, I decided to make a 4 ply for this yarn. I must say, it worked out very well in this case. I love that the brights were all toned down with the addition of the darker purple throughout the skein. While it didn’t seem like there was all that much sparkle in the rolags themselves, the entire skein does have quite a bit of sparkle in it, and it looks evenly distributed, rather than all clumpy.

All in all, while I was quite hesitant awhile ago about rolags from blending boards, I am officially sold on them. Not sold enough to purchase a blending board, but sold enough to want to spin rolags from a board. I really enjoyed the experience, they drafted out so nicely with my support spindles, and the resulting yarn is quite interesting.

I ended up with 145 yards of 4 ply yarn. I’d say it is a fingering to sport weight yarn.

Good stuff!

From the moment I finished the dyeabolical blue gradient yarn, I could think of only one thing.

That the colors of the gradient closely resemble the colors on the label of my favorite beer.

So when I thought about using that yarn, I kept thinking it might be fun to weave it, using the gold color from the label as the warp.

And when I say I kept thinking…I mean that I couldn’t get it out of my head. I would consider heading to the yarn shop and trying to find the perfect color gold yarn. Or I would look online for yarn that might be the right color. I’ve been telling myself this for a month now.

Saturday I finished a skein of yarn. Corgi Hill Farms lush batts. I ended up with a 240 yard skein of yarn in about a sport weight. I hung it up to dry in the bathroom. The next morning I walked in the bathroom, and only then, despite having spun on this yarn for quite some time now, did it dawn on me that I already *had* gold yarn to compliment the blue gradient.

I’d been spinning it all along!

I do love spinning a gradient! Last weekend I started on my Twisted Fiber Arts Glam braid. This one spun up awfully quick, I finished the singles last evening.

I am sorry that the picture is not the best, but the fiber pictured was as grey as the morning was.  Not that conducive to decent pictures. That being said, this means that I can get started chain plying this over the weekend if I have time between bike rides and other fun stuff.

I may not love spinning bamboo, but I suspect I am going to adore the end result of this particular spin.

I HAVE been spinning, I promise! It just doesn’t feel like it since nothing seems to be getting done. And this is entirely because I keep splitting my time between projects.

That being said, the corgi hill lush batts are so close to being done, as is the saxon wool. Really just very small bits left. The lush batts have been a wonderful and fulfilling spin. The saxon is now bordering on tedious. I think this is simply because it just wants to naturally spin into quite a fine single.

The lush batts are going to be a 2 ply. I estimate they will be about a sport weight. The saxon? I dunno, I really am at a loss as to what to do with them. 2 ply? 3 ply? Get crazy and 4 ply? No matter what, it is all going to be one color. Any suggestions?

I have to tell you a story about yesterday. Yesterday I began a project I’ve been considering for quite some time. Felted dryer balls out of handspun yarn. I had this post all ready to go and I was absolutely positive that Sparkeespud had made felted dryer balls before, and I truly believed that was where I got the idea. So my intention was to link back to her post on the subject.

I started to look back through her blog, looking for the felted dryer balls. I looked farther and farther back and never could find it. I found a bunch of other awesome posts and projects I’d spaced, but I couldn’t find those darned felted dryer balls.

I then gave up and emailed her. I figured she could pull up the post and send me the link so I could link back to it. And that was when she told me she’d never made felted dryer balls! I had to laugh, can’t be a bad thing to have such clever friends that you attribute clever projects back to them in your mind, right?

So whichever of you dear people who posted about felted dryer balls, I thank you. I made one yesterday out of handspun.

And now I can actually begin my regularly scheduled blog post. I decided on handspun for my felted dryer balls, as I’ve become such an avid spinner now that I no longer stress over leftover handspun. I thought this would be a fun way to commemorate handspun without the stress of trying to figure out what to do with it.

I had leftover from my zuzu’s petals cowl, the pink/grey/yellow bfl. I decided to use that. I wound the yarn in a way I hoped would show off the colors as well as possible. Then I tucked the end into the middle of the dryer ball with an embroidery needle.

As I’d just done a great bedroom clean out and rearrangement, I was able to easily locate an old pair of nylons I no longer needed, and I cut the legs off those. I stuffed the yarn ball in the toe and knotted it up, cutting off the excess.

I threw that into the laundry on hot with sheets and towels, then tossed it in the dryer immediately after.

It turned out like this:

It is even, and slightly felted. And very pretty. In fact, I am having a hard time imagining using it as a dryer ball. Maybe just make a few more and keep them in a clear vase? I don’t think it felted down enough though. As most of my felting projects take two or three trips through the washer to really felt well, it may just have to go through another cycle. But, it was an interesting little project for a busy Saturday.

So, up until yesterday, my only local girlfriend who aslo actively blogs has been Sparkeespud. It’s been a lot of fun following her blog while at the same time knowing her in person. Sometimes I have the opportunity to know a little more than she’s telling her readers in a post, and sometimes I learn something from the blog I can ask her about in person. Keeping up with blog and personal life is rather a fun thing to do. I like it, and often wish that more of my girlfriends blogged.

And this weekend? One more of my girlfriends began blogging again after a long hiatus. I now get the opportunity to enjoy another local girlfriend’s blog and I am quite excited. So if you get a chance, welcome Maryfargo back to the blogosphere!

Now on to more bloggy type things. Today was my once a month meet up with local knitters. I generally bring my wheel because I love social wheel spinning. Despite being at the beginning of a jacob fleece gradient project, I decided I needed a little color in my life.

I pulled out a lovely gradient braid of fiber I got from a destash. The Fiber is Glam from Twisted Fiber Art, and the colorway is Firefly. Fiber content is 30% bamboo rayon, 60% superwash merino, and 10% nylon. Now, while I often say there isn’t hard fiber to spin, just spinner preference, I find bamboo and tencel blends tough to spin. They are slippery for me, and they rarely spin as thin as I tend to spin. Which means I end up with something fairly thick and thin, because I’ve tried to force a fiber into submission by my will. It never works that well.

Since I am spinning thicker this year, rather than forcing the bamboo blend into a super thin yarn, I tried to let it spin to the thickness it wanted to be at and then attempted consistency from there.

It spun up fairly quickly , I am through the yellow and the greener tone, and on to the charcoal grey. May I add that the yellow/grey combination is one of my absolute favorites. I don’t know why. I just find those tones together so soft and comforting.

That being said, if I give this a little more of my time, I suspect I could have a new skein of yarn in fairly short order!

I kept thinking I didn’t have anything to post today. I figured since I am being slightly ADD about all my projects, devoting just a little time to each of them, I didn’t have anything worth showing.

And then I remembered my latest inglenook batt. You see, when I photographed my spindles the other day, I realized that I had this wide open russian spindle. Of course I had a hankering to start my next inglenook batt, despite the fact it would be much wiser to NOT start new things.

I didn’t resist.

I am going to try to make this one a 2 ply gradient. In this case, it means having two spindles going at once, tearing strips from the batt and alternating which spindle I spin them on. It should work. I hope it works! I guess we shall see.

But, I am concentrating most on my corgi hill lush batt project at the moment.