Spinning - lots of spinning

I finally finished spinning the next batch of cable 4ply - the new yarn is pictured here on the left - with the cable 4 ply that I did back in June. I only had enough of the original blue wool silk blend to do one ply on this latest batch. The first batch came in at 411 yards - this new batch is 450 yards. Both weigh somewhere around 140 grams each. I'm hoping that I will have enough to make an actual project of some sort now. I figure that the second batch took me just over a month - and at least 1800 yards of singles. I averaged 50 yards of spinning per day.

Here's me spinning the first ply on the ferry on the way to San Francisco - that's San Quentin in the background. This was one of the first pictures that I've gotten of me actually spinning. Funny how that works when you're the "photographer" of the bunch - not many pics of yourself - just everything and everyone around you.

I take my spindle everywhere with me, and will spin in the supermarket, the bank, the ferry, festivals, street fairs - you name it, I'll spin there. It annoys the high heavens out of my teenage son - but hey, it's so easy to embarrass the heck out of teenagers, and I have to have some fun right? I mean I get to put up with the moodiness, the dirty laundry strewn all over the house, the joys of getting him to take his turn at the dishes, and all the other trials and tribulations associated with being mom. If my spinning is a problem for him, well - that's his problem.

I thought it would be nice for y'all to show pics of the different stages of this particular yarn. I am always so pleased to see what the fiber looks like before spinning. So many times you only see the finished product, and as a spinner I really appreciate being able to see where it all started.

This is my Copper Moose American Beauty - my favourite spindle. It's about 1.5 ozs - I can usually get about 450 yards of singles on it when it's full. Two of these will basically fill up a Joy bobbin. This is the only ply of this batch that is the same as the first batch.





This is the other wool/silk blend (70/30) - from the Garden of Eden colourway from Copper Moose. It was much different than what was pictured on the e-bay - a bit disappointing, but still very pretty. It's being spun on my latest spindle acquisition - a zebrawood American Beauty (I loved the first one so much that I bought another).










I needed to dye some silk top to go with this batch - I used blues and greens, using Landscape Dyes.

I spun them up on a Spinner's Choice spindle that I like to spin silk on. It's a slightly smaller whorl diameter, but you just get so much yardage from spinning 100% silk that it works fine to go with the wool/silk blends that are spun on larger spindles.



















With a cable ply you ply 2 singles together as a set - then 2 other singles on another set (I ply on my wheel - we're talking a lot of yardage here!) Then take both of the yarns that you have just plied and ply them together again in the opposite direction.





I plied the first two bobbins on my Joy - the bobbins were close to being full... Then I took the two Joy bobbins and plied them onto my Skipper. Wow! It works sooo well for plying - I am even more in love with it now. I mean, this is two fairly full Joy bobbins, and it doesn't even come close to being full. And would you check out the size of that orifice! (stop sniggering Monkee!) But it really is huge. I keep trying to make a nice thick homespun single on this wheel - it's not working yet.





And here it is all skeined up outside in the sunlight. It is so hard to get the pictures of silk blends that are representative of what it really looks like - but hopefully you get the idea.