If you remember, Mabel was a fabulous Christmas gift from a lovely lovely friend. She's a refurbished Louet S10....and clearly has a lot of history!
Now I'm being perfectly honest here....Mabel and I have fallen out of love of numerous occasions since Christmas. Lots and lots of REALLY bad words have been uttered in sheer frustration. I think it's fair to say I'm not a natural when it comes to this spinning malarkey! For a kick off....I have no co-ordination whatsoever!!! I still struggle to catch a ball. Seriously.
But....I was totally determined to master spinning.
I started with some very coarse and scratchy mountain sheep fibres. Easy to control so I could concentrate on drafting and treadling at the same time. Not so worried about the finished result at this stage. Getting the co-ordination going and controlling the wheel was my main goal.
This is my first go at plying yarn. Not exactly the most consistent of specimens....but hey! I made it!!! Plenty time to work on technique and finish later.
Next came some merino. Wow! This isn't so easy to spin. There were plenty bad words uttered and I admit to a couple of MAJOR tantrums. Its pretty thick and thin but definitely getting better.
*almost* useable!!! Maybe I'm finally getting hang of it????
Erm.....maybe not! More merino, but this time squished into a tantrum fuelled ball. Damn you merino and Mabel!!!!
And breathe....deep breaths....and a glass of wine ;-)
Step away from the spinning wheel and leave it for a bit....
Another go....with some beautifully blended fibres sent in the post from a lovely lovely friend :-)
What's this??? Is that a bobbin full of tantrum free singles I see?
Yup...me and Mabel are finally bonding. I'm actually relaxing when I spin rather than being a mass of tension and hand cramps.
Check this out!!! Still a little thick and thin but much much better.
Sooooooo while waiting for more fibres in the post, I was doing a little blog hopping and stumbled across this blog. What's this??? A spin a long??? Oooooo now that sounds perfect! So I popped over to Ravelry and joined up :-) Obviously I would need some fibres for this (hehehe) so off shopping I went and purchased 300g of this...
A BFL, Shetland, Merino and Baby Alpaca blend. And boy is it soft and snuggly!!!! I got it from Spin City. It's beautifully prepared and just check out those colours!
This is where I'm up to. 2 bobbins ready to ply. I've ran out of bobbins. I've ordered 2 more. So the plying will have to wait a bit. How frustrating!!! But how weird! I'm now frustrated because I WANT to spin. I'm finding it wonderfully relaxing. I find myself going into a trancelike state when I'm treadling. Is this normal? Hopefully I'll have some plyed yarn to show you soon.
Til next time
Mx
