Spinning up a storm

Whereas I knit every single day my spinning wheel only comes out to play every once in a while. I'm not quite sure why this is as: 1) I love spinning - so satisfying to be actually able to make yarn; 2) it's not like I'm short on materials, whilst the fibre stash is nowhere near the size of the yarn stash (thank goodness) at the moment I have one braid of bfl/silk from Old Maiden Aunt, one braid of bfl from The Thylacine, and a goodly bump of Shetland left over from my sleeveless Arisaig; and 3) my spinning wheel is not tucked away in some obscure corner where I can forget about it, it's on full view next to the telly in our living room.

When I do start spinning though it's like I've flicked a switch and I can't stop. This week I finished spinning the third ply of a braid of blf/silk blend from Old Maiden Aunt which I bought at Knit Camp in Stirling last summer (and which has been on the wheel for almost that long) and plied it.



Fibre: 70% Blue Faced Leicester/30% Tussah silk from Old Maiden Aunt in (I think) Sherbert
Yarn weight: 3 ply fingering weight
Yardage: 347 metres/100g

Once I finished that and got it soaking I moved straight on to a 50g bump of hand-dyed merino that I picked up  in a lovely knitting and quilting (plus a load of other crafts) shop in Bellingen, New South Wales. The fibre was dyed in Coffs Harbour (where we had stayed the night before) so it was as local as you can get (and a bargain at AUS$4!).



I tried to spin this up a little bit thicker, more of a dk weight. In retrospect this wasn't such a smart idea as it means that I ended up with only just under a 100 metres of yarn - not completely sure what I'll do with it but I'm sure I'll think of something. I don't have a picture of the spun yarn but I'll put one up when I start to knit something with it.

Fibre: 100% merino, hand dyed in Coffs Harbour, bought in Bellingen, NSW
Yarn weight: heavy dk
Yardage: 97 metres/50g

Once I'd finished that I dug out a braid that I'd almost forgotten I had (to be fair I've got married and been on honeymoon since I bought it).



I'm spinning this up in a similar style to the bfl/silk above. The fibre is from The Thylacine and the colourway (I think) is Wild Dog Creek. Should be very pretty when done.