SpinnySpinny

I finally finished a baby blanket I started a few months back. It’s a big dishcloth in classic cotton dishcloth-type yarn. I put it in the Gallery, too. I started it thinking it would be a good travel project, but even with the absurdly simple pattern the two colors were a nuisance to drag around without tangling. I finally ended up putting it in a basket and threading the yarns through the two handles. It was too heavy and too easy to tangle for travel, so I rarely worked on it.

I’m still sorting and washing the Merino lamb, it does drum card nicely but I think I’m going to comb anyway. Combing doesn’t require an extra step to get the VM out. I tried carding with the bleached tips cut off and it is darker, but only barely. It’s good and dark for wool, but not black. I might dye it once it’s spun. I can’t decide what to make, so for now I’m just working through the scouring a batch at a time.

I did the Dorset/Romney blend on the drum carder and it came out nicely. There are a few noils because I didn’t flick the Romney, but not too many to pull out along the way. I can’t figure out what to do with that either. There’s almost 300g, enough for several hats or a scarf or maybe a lace shawl. Spun worsted it will still have decent loft, perfect for socks but I like finer fiber for socks. And I hate hand washing socks, anyway. I want to finish the spinning I’ve got going, so I packed it away for now.

Also in the interest of cleaning up half-baked ideas, I started flicking yet another dark brown Merino. I long ago packed up the nicer parts of this fleece, a rush scour job after a brush with the M-word. I wasn’t so careful with the sorting and more than usual ended up in the carding pile. Which then felted a little in the wash. After that, I wasn’t happy with how it came off the drum carder. So it’s been sitting around in an old produce bag ever since. I should be able to pull out enough well-formed staples to flick out the felted bits and then card and still have enough to do something. I could always blend it with more from the other portion, or any of the other three nearly identical fleeces. Somebody kick me if I suggest buying yet another dark brown Merino fleece before I make it through the ones I have. That should give me a good five years, minimum.

Lately I’ve been less than enamored of my current spinning project and also in need of more stare-into-space time, so long sessions with the dog brush are actually a good thing. I have fairly easy access to the drum carder now, so I’m trying out different things. But I always go back to combing anything that can be combed and then only maybe getting around to carding the rest.

Now that the blanket is done, maybe I can get motivated to continue with the purple Ashland Bay stuff. I’m trying to like commercial prep but failing to be enthused. Maybe I’m just out of enthusiasm this month, it being used up on other things. I’ve had some real work and expect more and we are trying to buy a house. I’ve been organizing my fiber stuff with the thought of having an actual room to myself for a studio. Maybe that’s why I just don’t have the energy for this pretty but too short and very not perfect commercial top. It’s like those things on the shopping list I never quite get to, despite being out of AAA batteries for weeks now.