It’s been forever since I’ve blogged. Think I should fire myself?
Seriously though, I don’t know where the time goes. It’s July 24th today and I feel like July 1st was just last week? Did someone hit the fast-forward button when I wasn’t looking?
I’ve worked a lot in the last couple of weeks. BUT, I’ve managed to do a few things that I’m pretty excited about:
I went zip-lining with Jacob and my father (63). We had such a blast.
This was a giant deal for me because I don’t like heights. Youpi for me!
I managed to figure out that the piece I bought for my wheel, which I thought was a “woolee winder“, is actually just a travelling flyer and bobbin. Those two things are apparently very different. I don’t think I wasted money. I’m sure this new flyer will work much better than the ones I have – plus it actually has different ratios. (I think I just sort of figured those out: big is faster, small is slower. I could be wrong though.) PLUS, the bobbins I got are enormous. I find that I run out of room on my little bobbins quite often.
I spun some Coopworth. I think it turned out awesome. I put a lot of spin in the single so that I could get a tighter ply.
How cool is that?? I made that!!
I went to my (awesome) friend Bonnie’s last week to use her English Combs (which I’m going to save my birthday money for). I also used her drum carder (an electric one – mine is hand-cranked and I haven’t tried it yet). I made some combed roving and some carded bats.
These are the combs:
They are so threatening that they won’t let you see the actual teeth in the picture.
This is Bonnie’s carder:
This is my carder:
Anyway, the combed roving turned out way better… I find.
This is the carted bat and the spun result:
I know it’s hard to tell the difference but, I can tell. The carded bat has more neps. I don’t know that the combed stuff had any neps in it. I probably wasted more wool with the combs but the result is more pleasant.
I also managed to do this while I was trying to ply:
TIP: Don’t try to make a center pull ball with a rolled up piece of paper. It eventually starts to collapse so that the outside stuff scrunches up the inside stuff and you get the above mess.
On a knittier-note, I’ve been working on socks for a friend’s wife. I’ve been commissioned. Genny has giant feet so I was somewhat worried about running out of wool. I weighed the first sock and the rest of the wool and, according to my calculations, I will have plenty.
And, all the while trying to work on my Pucker. I had it done to 13 inches, almost ready to start that funky chest thing when I decided I didn’t like the way it was turning out. So, I ripped it back and now I have this:
I have some grass to go cut.
Until next time.
That is about 3 inches. Yikes. Considering the fact that it’s the end of July, will I be finished in time to wear it this summer?