So it’s “officially” Summer. Summer and I don’t get along. Almost all of my mental breakdowns have occured during the Summer. Add to that I hate being hot. ( I’m talking humid city heat not breezy by the sea heat or even dry 2 inches from a pool desert heat.) Also, this is the time when I become a tennis widow. G and I have spent sixteen summers together and every summer that I’ve known him he’s spent the majority of every weekend on the tennis court. In the olden days, when I was young and hot (the sexy kind of heat), with long flowing hair and a twenty yr old body, I used to go to the tennis courts at the park and lay out in my bikini. Yeah. Not so much anymore. That was the first Summer we were together and I was trying to impress. Pretty much every Summer after that one I bitched and moaned and cried when tennis came around. Stay with me. Play with me. Don’t leave me alone. As the years went on I would try to find something, anything to occupy my time while he was out doing his raquet thing. And then I found knitting. My Summers are now blissfully free of heat and loneliness and even the breakdowns aren’t as bad as they used to be. With the airconditioning set to frigid and a good movie on the tube I can while away the hours while G plays tennis happy as a clam. Now when he tells me he’s leaving for the courts, I say see ya! And when he tells me he’s sorry he’s home late I say, wha? Late? I think, these days, he’s actually missing me. 😉
I was hoping to work on the squares this weekend but I had a problem with the yarn so I’m still waiting. Instead, giving that I’m up to my ears in organizing the SPIN OUT, I thought I should take some time getting reacquainted with my wheel.
Reacquainted my ass. We, my wheel and I, are now inseparable. Bosom buddies. Lovers even.
I finally finished plying the remaining Hot Flash Biffle. If you remember, I was overjoyed at my results with the first Hot Flash plying adventure. This weekend was no different:
I was so happy that I could still ply after my lesson, being as I haven’t touched my wheel (I think, literally) since then. In the end things were either overplied or overspun because the skein was pretty twisty when I took it off the niddy noddy, but everything straightened out with a nice wash and hang. I’m very pleased with it and I’ve got another 8oz.
I have to say though, I was getting sick of Hot Flash, for the time being at least, but I definitely WASN’T sick of spinning. And since I had three days of tennis to get through, I took out some of Amy Boogie’s Spunky Eclectic Biffle in the Tahiti colorway to play with. I’ve got 12 oz. of this and spun up 4.
This is about as nice as it gets – this fiber is prepared so so well. It just falls apart in strips and you barely have to predraft at all. This is the absolute best spinning I’ve done to date. The singles were even and thin and the whole time I was spinning it up I was thinking of what I could knit with it. I think I might take a page from Wendy and make a shawl, but I’m not sure I’ll have enough. I’m still not sure how to figure out how much yarn I have – you know – that pesky math. I counted 65 strands when it was hanging – so do I multiply that by 4, then multiply that by 18″, the size of my niddy noddy? Anyway, I love this stuff and therefore you will see lots of nice pictures.
Gorgeous, isn’t it? Tonight I’m going to ply up what’s left on the bobbins and then start spinning more. The most important thing to come out of this weekend is that I definitely feel like I’ve conquered Biffle (Blue Faced Leicester) and am ready to move onto something a little more difficult. I’m not sure what yet, but I may tackle some of the merino in my stash to see how things go. I’m going to need to learn Merino soon because I ordered two different fiber colorways from Teyani so I can spin up my own Sock Hop socks!
Speaking of which, when I wasn’t spinning I was knitting on my Heat Wave sock.
I’m still absolutely LOVING this yarn. I think next I’m going to knit up the American Pie colorway – hopefully I’ll have a pair in time for July 4th.
SPIN OUT stuff continues! I had a great talk with Linda Cortright today, the editor of Wild Fibers Magazine. She asked me to write an article about the event! And photograph it! We’re getting a page in the magazine. How COOL is that!? She also offered up three subscriptions as prizes. If you haven’t seen it already, there are amazing prizes to be had in the Raffle benefiting Heifer International. I started the raffle in conjunction with the SPIN OUT, but they are two separate things. The registry will close on June 30th – a week after the SPIN OUT. You don’t have to come to the SPIN OUT to participate. You don’t have to spin to participate. All you have to do is spend (at least) $10 on a great cause and you will have a chance to WIN lots of FANTASTIC prizes. I’m adding new prizes everyday and right now I have more prizes than I have potential winners. I’m hoping you can all help me change that. Go HERE for all the relevant information. Thank you so much.
Car news soon. Like to
morrow. The pictures are taken I just have to work on them a little bit.
Have a great day!
L, C
Your spinning is fabulous! Amy’s roving was beautiful but you made it into something spectacular. My wheeln envy groweth as does my desire for some of Teyani yarn!
Your spinning is gorgeous….and that Tahiti colorway, wow! You’re making my head spin with all this spin-out talk. I’ve got so much on my plate that the thought of organizing something like this — like to make my head explode. You are a glutton for punishment, aren’t ya? 🙂
Speaking of G~~how is his hip (it was his hip, right, not his knee) doing these days?
BTW–your spinning is lovely!
Way back when (http://www.januaryone.com/archives/2006/03/all_is_right_with_the_world.php, to be exact), you were just the Yeah, Yeah, Yeah girl… remember? Are you gettin’ any help with this Spin In/Out Twirl it All About from the person who thought it up in the first place?
Just askin’. Or is she too busy finding Dinty Moore haiku?
God, I love you guys.
That is seriously gorgeous spinnage. Well done.
Lovely yarn!!! I believe – and chances are high I’m wrong – that when you use an 18 inch kniddy knoddy – you count your strands/strings and multiply by 2 – each side of the kniddy knoddy yields a yard.
Remember, I did say chances were high that I’m wrong – but I would be very happy indeed if I gave you the right answer!!
Cara – your spinning is gorgeous! I love the colors, a shawl would be perfect. I have to admit to a big load of jealousy at the quiet alone time to spin!!
First post here.
I truly enjoy reading this blog, your style of writing and your interesting day-to-day is so enormously entertaining!
Jealous at the free time. But I teach, and summer’s coming, and I, too, worship at the altar of the frigid-air gods. July and August can’t come fast enough.
Very cool spinning!
Nice spun yarn. It looks great!
Your doing great your spinning is beautiful!
Ooh, yum. The Tahiti handspun looks like Koigu, for some reason. Do the wraps per inch thing, and you should be able to calculate how many yards you’ll get from 12 ounces. Also, on the niddy-noddy, you count just once and multiply that by 2, which is the total number of yards.
Wish I was back East for the Spin Out!
Delurking to comment on the beautiful spinning. Seriously, I’ve managed to resist picking it up this long, but your photos of your spinning, and all the wonderful things everyone says about it may soon break me down.
So one way of knowing your yardage is to have a 2X4 w/ tall nails driven in 1 yard or metre apart. Then you can wrap your yarn around the nails in a pre-skeining move, count the wraps on one side and multiply by two: voila! I wish I knew who to credit for this idea, but I can’t remember.
I am drooling over this yarn. It makes me feel even more inadequate and sad about my recent spinning attempts.
OMG. That IS gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous.
Fabulous spinning, hon. So glad you’ve got your groove going!
I’m with you on the heat issue–I thank God every day for air conditioning!
Look at all the advanced spinning going on around here! You should be puffed up with pride for making that awesome yarn.
Pretty in pink… GORGEOUS!
I’m not seduced by spinning (yet) but those pinks are terrific… And Bravo to you for finding a suitable alternative to whingeing during tennis season.
Oh, the Hot Flash yarn makes me yearn for it. So pretty! Your spinning looks great. Glad you found something to occupy your time while G is out playing tennis.
Lovely, just lovely!
You may not get exactly two yards per loop of the niddy noddy, but multiplying your 65 by 2 and counting yards is certainly simpler than multiplying by four and eighteen and then having to divide by 36. (When you have time and the inclination, you could actually measure the length of a piece of yarn that goes around your niddy the way you wrap your skeins. The little bit of diagonal distance will make some difference…)
Cara, your spinning looks amazing! I’m so impressed. And the spin out sounds like FUN.
Honey, I *hear* you with the spinning.
And, um, well, since I can’t make it to NYC for the Spin-in, maybe you could consider making a trip to Boston one of these weekends while you’re a tennis widower. Y’know – just a thought. 😉
That yarn is so perfect and smooth I thought it was a storebought skein (which I mean as a compliemtn. Really!) Huge applause for your spinning skills!
Wow! Your spinning looks fab; I am so jealous! I hope that my spinning will someday be as beautiful.
Gorgeous spinning. Really. I had good intentions of trying to ply this weekend, but I didn’t even touch my wheel. I really need to spend some time with it before Estes.
That pink is really really pretty! I may have to get some from Ms. Amy! By the by, did you say you picked up some fiber from Spinners Hill at Maryland? Now that is some fine fiber. I have 3 different colors and was very pleased will all 3. In fact I talked to her on the phone today to see if I could get a color card. She was sooo nice!
Looking for to seeing more spinning.