When life hands you a sick child, make yarn

Last weekend, for the second time in 16 days, my youngest child managed to run a fever, thereby ensuring 1) a low key weekend, and 2) no school on Monday. Since Monday, she has spent about 1.75 days at school, as apparently this particular virus has a very long recovery time (which would explain my lingering fug as well...). So I've spent most of the week, cuddled up with Boo and the Wee Dog on the couch, watching 101 Dalmatians (the Glenn Close version - so fabulous!) over and over and over and over and...and spinning. Lots and lots of spinning.

First up: you've seen this yarn before, but now it's had a bath and I have stats.

Dirty Porridge Portuguese Merino/Targhee combo (from Silt PM and Parritch Targhee, Hello Yarn Fiber Club offerings), 3-ply, 1210 yds/20.3 oz (plus 38 yds in the mini skein for swatching), 10-14 wpi, 947/925/990 ypp for the three big skeins. So approximately aran weight. Destined for a big, squooshy, wraparound sweater for me, me, me.

This week, I managed to ply up the leftover singles from each colorway.



I ended up with 130 yds of Parritch Targhee, and 27 yds of Silt Portuguese Merino, both chain plied and approximately aran weight. The Parritch might even be enough for a hat or something, which is a very exciting prospect...

My most recently finished spin for the week (i.e. still drying!) is also from Adrian at Hello Yarn: Gobbler Cheviot.

I started this on the miniSpinner at spinning night on Tuesday, finished the singles while home with Boo on Wednesday afternoon, and chain plied (for the first time on the miniSpinner) last night while watching Game of Thrones season 1.

I want matchy-matchy socks from this fiber, so I split the top in quarters lengthwise and spun two pieces end to end, added a bit of waste yarn in the middle to mark the split between the two skeins, then spun the other two pieces. I also tried chain plying on the miniSpinner, which I hadn't done before, and it went pretty well, once I figured out the right speed to set.

Final yardage is 95 yds and 130 yds, so either I split very, very poorly or I'm going to need two different needle sizes for each of the intended socks. Hmmm. I love the colors though, and my goal is to finish the socks by our next spinning night a month from now. Initially I intended them for me, but I suspect Himself might decide these need to be his....good thing his birthday is next month!

However, I didn't limit myself to Hello Yarn fiber in this spinning frenzy. There was also a bunch of Porpoise Fur. I finished (i.e. fulled) the Parakeet singles I spun up last week,

I ended up with 100 yds/2 oz (800 ypp, about worsted weight), with only a few spots of overtwisting and no breaking when skeining - result! I was hoping for a bit more yardage so I could whip up another singles hat for myself, but this may end up as a kid-sized version.

Finally: the fastest sweater lot (I hope!) ever.

This is a pile of Magpie Shetland-silk that I've spun up for a sweater for barter as part of mine and Alli's SSP*. Started the singles on Sunday afternoon. Finished singles Monday morning. Finished plying Tuesday night. Finished yarn by Wednesday. 480 yds/16 oz, 8-5 wpi, 480 ypp, super bulky (At least in my eyes. In fact, it's so bulky I'm not sure I have needles big enough to get a nice fabric!). I spun the singles on the Lendrum at 12:1, doing a backwards draw to keep them light and airy (and superfast to spin). In essence, I let some twist into the drafting zone and pulled backwards against it - kind of a long draw, sort of, maybe**. I plied it on the miniSpinner trying to keep the plying twist low to maximize the yardage. We will see if I have enough once I swatch and do some number crunching!

And...I think that's it for me. One week, 705 yds of yarn from scratch, 157 yds of newly-plied, and 1348 yds of newly finished and measured yarn. Which makes a total of far too many 2210 yds of finished yarn for the week. Basta!

No more spinning for me for a while - with all this fresh new yarn around, I've got to get knitting!

* Sooper Sekrit Project.
** I can hear the screams of the true long draw spinners from here. Sorry!

So. Boring.

The fact that I have knitting that I can not talk about is really starting to irritate me. But two of the three projects are almost done! I think I can get away with a couple of teasers...Secret #1:

Please note colors have been adjusted to not represent reality. I'm on round 4 of 6 of the edging now. The end is in sight.

Secret #2 is done.

And needs to be packed up and put in the mail by the end of the week. So...there's a bit of knitting/hooking evidence for you. But...be forwarned that I took advantage of Boo's second round of feverish cold over the weekend/Monday to finish off all of my spinning projects, to the tune of seven (!) skeins of yarn. And I started something new yesterday and finished the singles today, so Fiber Friday might be nine (!!!!) skeins of yarn to share.

Dude...

Singles!

My post-Winter Holidays spinning frenzy continues, this time with some Parakeet Corriedale.

This 2 oz took me about an hour to spin on the miniSpinner. I've been letting it rest since then so that it's not too energized when I take it off the bobbin and finish it, but I'm not sure how much longer I can wait! I'm hoping to have enough yardage to do a retake on my top-down hat that I made over New Year's, and then I'll be able to get the pattern out to some test knitters and get it released.

Monday random bits

1. I have knitting that I can not share. Knitting in custom-dyed indie yarn even. The trick of alternating between two balls of yarn is working out really well in taking care of dye lot variations (which are quite dramatic). But that's all I can tell you at the moment...

2. I have another secret project, only this one is crochet. And it's a baby present. So no pictures at all, for the time being. Suffice to say that a) I had to buy yarn for this one and b) it's cotton yarn (I may now be convinced that cotton yarn is only good for crochet, by the by...) Both of my daughters have asked for the same item, only in wool. Hmmm...

3. Last week's freezing temperatures and snow may have led me to the "inescapable" conclusion that I needed to make the girls new hats and mittens. With hedgehogs (their request). Which meant I had to get some yarn on Friday when out doing "market research" with Alli. The fact that it is now 7 degrees C out has sapped my will to knit mittens and hats. Ehem. Move along here, nothing to see.

4. My Dirty Porridge yarn is now happily dry and ready to be measured and assessed. However, I have not yet managed to collect it from the towel rack in the downstairs bathroom and make such measurements, nor have I managed to collect the other 8 skeins of yarn that have been hanging over the shower head since early December. Knitter/spinner fail.

5. I am a bit concerned that I'm going to be stuck in the middle of a big thing at work and be extremely late to meet Devil's bus after school. Oy! FWP for the win on a (finally!) sunny Monday.

Get a miniSpinner, if only for the plying

This week I learned the true value of the Hansen miniSpinner: super amazingly fast plying.

Sometime in November I started spinning 24 oz of fiber (first blogged 23 November) - 16 oz of Portuguese Merino in the "Silt" colorway,


and 8 oz of Parritch Targhee.


Last Friday, I finished the third and final bobbin (the Targhee), making it just about 2 months for spinning the whole 24 oz. Yesterday, I finished plying the last of the combo, making it less then a week for plying 24 oz of fiber (!):

Here it is in all its glory:

And in extensive, close up detail...




Clearly the miniSpinner is da bomb (and speedy!) for plying. Truly!

These big squooshy skeins are still a bit damp, and the small final leftovers/swatching skein still needs a bath. I'll update with yardage/wpi/grist statistics when I've figure it all out. Have a good weekend!