Monday, April 4, 2011

I've Got Yarn!

This weekend I threw myself a plying party and turned the roughly 900 grams of singles I spun last month into about 2,000 yards of three-ply, honest-to-goodness yarn. I finished plying Saturday night but I was so excited that I couldn't sleep. I finally got up at 2:30 am Sunday, reviewed Maggie Casey's instructions in Start Spinning, and proceeded to soak the yarn in warm water and dishwashing detergent, then rinse it with vinegar, then rinse it again with clear water. I squeezed out the excess water with beach towels, "snapped" the damp skeins vigorously a few times, then hung them on the handle of a broken mop to dry. By this time it was 7:30 am and I decided to go back to bed. Later, my oldest son Alex was kind enough to hold the skeins near a window so I could snap this photo. (Notice Alex's handknitted socks--he decided to wear a matching pair this day.)


It took about 24 hours for the yarn to dry enough to wind into skeins--there are 17 of them of various sizes.



The next step is to wind it into balls and swatch to see exactly what I have. Hopefully, the yarn will "speak" to me as I swatch and I'll figure out what kind of sweater it wants to be. Most hopefully, there won't be too much variation in thickness and I'll be able to get a decent looking garment. I may not sleep tonight in anticipation!

8 comments:

Cambria said...

That's fantastic! You're renewed my desire to spin up some of my fiber stash and see if I can actually make something out of it, lol.

JelliDonut said...

It's gorgeous--congrats!

Freyalyn said...

It looks lovely - nicely structured, bouncy and airy.

Virginia G said...

Go you! Love the color.

Donna said...

Very exciting; I love Alex's Vanna White hands: "Look at all this yarn!"

april said...

This kind of stuff is exciting to fellow knitters, we totally understand. Its no wonder you couldn't sleep. I love the color,too.

Aunt Cookie said...

The yarn is lovely. It is so nice to know that I'm not the only one up in the middle of the night fulling newly-plied yarn because I was too excited to wait to the next morning. I can't wait to see what you design for it.

theatreknitter said...

so when I walked into the shop the other day to test out my first wheel ever I was asked"Why do you want a wheel" My response. . "Well, I love my spndle, but you see I have been following ann Budd's blog, and she is spinning enough for a sweater, so now I want a wheel" did you know you would become an enabler. . . . .