After spinning and plying
my first dye-job, life intervened and I didn't get to spin for a couple weeks. No biggy, right? Well, apparently I haven't spun enough to fully "set" this new skill. Now I can't spin. Anything. I tried Rechel's washed, rooed locks; I tried some superwash merino laps. No go. Getting new yarn started is always my biggest challenge, so I grabbed a bobbin on which I had already spun some commercial top from the fold, thinking to take the easy road and continue with it. Still nothing. I tried and tried and then lost the end of the yarn in the bobbin. Since I had another full bobbin of the same stuff, I grabbed it to add to. Managed to create a little more yarn while struggling to get enough twist and less pull so that my yarn would hold together. Then I lost the end in that bobbin. Great. Now I have lots of wispy pieces of yarn that kept coming off in my hands, two bobbins with lost ends, and top that I can't spin.
Maybe I will have more success with Dinah's fleece, since the washed-but-still-a-little-"sticky" stuff, smelling richly of lanolin, seems to be easiest for me to spin. So I am busy carding the rest of her fleece that I fluff-cleaned in the dryer earlier this week. Then I plan to dye it in Kool-Aid blues and greens, spin it up, and ply it with the white-gold thread for another felted handbag. (No, I haven't made a handbag yet out of the first dye-job yarn; what's your point?)
That's it for now at . . .
3 comments:
Usually when this happens, it is THE WHEEL and not YOU! Sometimes that wheel just needs more adjustment (and we always blame the wheel, not the spinner). I hate the lost end syndrome. Just cut a new end and keep going. You'll end up losing the end again when you ply, but there is no other way out unless you enjoy sitting with a spotlight on the bobbin for hours looking for that end. I think the darker colors are the worst for lost end syndrome. Have a glass or two of wine, that always helps feel like you spin better).
Well, I tried chocolate, since I'm a teetotaler, but that didn't work....
Thanks for the encouragement. I'll keep trying; I'm nothing if not stubborn. Besides, I don't want Lauren calling me a neophyte spinner!
See? Becca thinks like I do:
1. It's the adjustment of the wheels and
B. You need a glass of wine!
I feel totally vindicated now that Becca has said the same thing! :)
(lol)
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