Off To A Good Start

So I’ve really enjoyed getting back into some spinning. I’ve been splitting roving into manageable lengths and pre-drafting it and winding it into little organized bundles.

I’m working one getting my singles even. I’ve plied four bobbins worth which equaled about ¼ pound and came up with two skeins – one 193 yards and one 236 yards. Then I knit up a new swatch using size 6 needles and got the proper gauge- 18 stitches over 4 inches. This is a little looser than my initial swatch. My thought is that it gives the mohair a little more room to bloom.

If I manage to keep this all pretty consistent I should have 1716 yards with 2 pounds of roving and the sweater calls for 1045.  Plenty- in a perfect world…

I know it’s a good idea to keep spinning for this one project to get my “muscle memory” set and that’s going to be a little challenging – so much fun stuff to play with. It’s going to take discipline…..

I did have to ply the singles that had been left on the bobbins three years ago in order to get going with the green though.  Freshly plied the yarn was a kinky mess.  I guess because the initial twist was dormant from sitting so long. I took a chance plying -not really being able to gauge how much twist to add.  After a bath not bad- not bad at all.  I’m going to turn it into some more socks.

Then I decided to get started on the sweater to see how it was going to feel. The design has a twisted rib stitch at the neck that gives it an interesting texture. So- so far so good….

Tomorrow I’m heading to a shop down in Lake Orion to brush up on some of the technical aspects of my wheel and I’m hoping to squeeze as much spinning in as I can over the weekend- housework is going to have to wait – Spring is still a few weeks off.