TaDa!!

My first spinning project is complete. Well almost, all I have to do now is wash the yarn I made and then figure out what I am going to knit with my masterpiece. I spun brown and white wool; 1/2 pound of each. Doesn’t sound like much, but holy spin BatMan it is a lot! The process, for those of you that don’t know, is to spin the colors separately and then put the together in what is called plying to get a two ply yarn. These are my two colors waiting to be plyed. Actually, I had already started plying them so imagine each spool a little over half full. When you spin your wool, you spin you thread in one direction to make a one ply thread. Both threads are twisted in the same direction. When you ply it, you spin it together in the opposite direction so that you don’t unwind your thread that you just made. I am finding that you really need to be very coordinated to do this. I took me two weeks to consistently get the wheel to go to the right to spin the wool, now that I am plying I have to get the wheel to spin to the left. All of this while using both hands to feed the yarn into the wheel at a consistent speed without getting tangled. It is quite comical; I talk out loud to my wheel. I will have to give it a name cause it certainly seems to have a mind of it’s own.

Three hours later, I have 360 feet of this brown and white 2-ply yarn. 360 FEET! 120 YARDS! What am I going to do with all this? I am not someone who can wear brown. I think all my kids will get brown and white scarves next year. Here is my finished skein on what is called a Niddy Noddy. Funny little tool that helps you wind the wool. Also not an easy thing to get right. All in all I am very pleased with my first attempt. Now I have the bug and want to do more……look what just came in the mail…I think I will save it until I get really good. It is so pretty, I want to just touch it. Is fondling fiber illegal?