No knitting - but plenty of plying

Warning: Serious yarn Pr0n ahead - scroll down to the bottom

I've been feeling a bit under the weather, nothing serious - just kinda achey and generally run down. One of those things where you feel like you're coming down with the general crud that's been going around, but it hasn't hit full force and you're not sure if it will.

I took the day off on Friday, fully intending to be good and virtuous. Take my time, fiddle about with my projects at a nice leisurely rate: finish my cardigan, do some spinning, maybe get some dyeing done. I dropped the Boo off at school and dropped by my boyfriend's house - might as well - it's practically around the corner. He was still asleep - I gave him quite the startled waking up. He wasn't expecting me in the slightest, he joked that it was a good thing that he'd made all the other girls go home before I showed up. Yeah, right.

I crawled into bed, and the next thing I knew it was 2:30 in the afternoon! I must have needed the rest.

Anyway - Friday night I started plying. I plied the Brown Sheep Shed Studio Mill End rovings that I have been spinning on my Skipper.
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This is about 260 grams (about 9 ozs or so). I think it's something like 650 yards total. I'm thinking a jacket would be nice out of this - or a nice yoke sweater - with the black/white roving that I also got from the Sheep Shed Studio folks.

All in all - I have to say that this stuff is really nice! Not next to skin nice, but it's got a lovely crispness to it - and you just can't beat the price. I love the heathered look that you get from the roving.

Then I proceeded to spin. I spun up this merino/tencel blend that I dyed in my last dye-day extravaganza. I've been wanting to knit some handspun socks. Believe it or not - I've knit probably a hundred pairs of socks now. Though I think I've only finished 2.5 pairs since I started this whole blogging thing. Socks used to be my "do where ever I go thing" but spindling seems to have taken over that little niche.

There was even a method to my madness. I took the length of roving and folded it in half lengthwise. I tore it apart at the halfway along the roving mark. Spun up one half of the roving without splitting the top, or any predrafting either. Then I took the other half of the roving and split it lengthwise into 4 fairly equal strips and spun them up on another bobbin. I only had 4 ozs of this stuff, so plied them together using the Joy.


This is what I came out with. 4 ozs about 500 yards of something very different than what I had envisioned the roving to spin up to be. Now I think that this should knit up in a nice self striping Trekking type of sock. I don't know for sure until I start knitting. But it was a fun way to spin up some space dyed roving - that's for sure. I can't wait to turn this into it's own little yarn cake and see what it does in the skein.




And last - but very most certainly not least - I present the Optim that I've been spindling for oh.... since about the first of September. I spun it all up on my Lacewood Emily, which has a good 3" whorl. Again I played around with spinning one spindleful just from the roving as it came. The second spindleful was the roving split in half. The two spindlefuls were plied together to give me the loveliest, softest stuff that I have ever spun.

I have taken to calling it my precioussssss and fondling it and petting it, and just holding it up in the light, watching the reflections bounce off it, and watching the drape of it (oh the drape!) I.am.in.love! I wish I could find someplace that sold it at better quantity/price. Every place online that I have seen it, it's $15/4ozs, which to be honest - seems a bit steep. But then again I was able to get a whopping 635 yards from the 4 ozs that I had.

It really reminds me a lot of a pointillest painting, very Monet. The roving that I dyed did the lovely trick of getting nice and dark on the outside, and white on the inside. But because I didn't do much if any predrafting, I ended up with a speckly type effect that I am in love with. Oh - did I mention that I'm in love?

Sorry people I guess I should have warned you about the serious (I mean serious) yarn Pr0n that was about to be foisted upon you. Can you tell that I get excited easily? Or that I'm easily amused? But look! Oh.my.gosh.
I'm sorry - I just can't help it - drool, thud, wow.... I really really can't wait to start knitting this lovely stuff up.

It will grow up to be a lovely lacey little top for yours truly. This again, should have some Trekkingesque self striping tendencies, so I'm considering a Feather and Fan, or other chevron type of thing. It will not need sleeves - just pure unadulterated Optim next to my skin.

Deep breaths - I think I have to go lay down for a minute now before I hyperventilate even more.

My goal for tonight.... easy dinner - pick up a rotisserie chicken that's already cooked, maybe some mac and cheese and some veg and try to get my Caramel Swirl done before I dive into the Impressionistic Dream that I really want to be knitting.

I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with the CS cardigan. I have a sneaking suspicion that this cardigan has a mind of it's own and just doing the darn I-cord along the neckline and calling it good will suffice.

It looks darker in the middle picture, because I took that last night, and the light wasn't as good as it was at lunchtime today - but it's so prony I had to include it!