November Spinning

I was still using the Ashford Traditional, Miss Molly, to spin with. I really do enjoy spinning with her!  November planned spinning though was some 50/50 merino/silk that I had received from Morgaine with the purchase of my Lendrum, Miss Mabel.

This stuff was free because it had been bouncing around in boxes to many shows and handled and some slight felting had occurred. Just to spin it I had to get ruthless and shred it into strips. Then do some opening up of those strips to help pre-draft. Even with all of that the silk was hard on my right thumb. It helps pull out the fiber to be spun in the style I use for spinning.

So I was steadily making progress with it during the month, went from here at the beginning of the month:

 To this at the end of the month:

I decided that I'd give it a whirl with navajo plying so I could keep the color stripes intact. The silk had allowed me to get it really thin, so a three ply would still be a lace weight when done. The last time I had done some navajo plying I was still doing the chaining and then treadling it on to the bobbin. I'd watched Bobbie show Beth on our Black Friday Spinning so went for it. It worked! Found where the underspun spots were but it helped for moving the yarn up on the bobbin. I also plied it on Miss Mabel so it was a joint wheel effort. ;-)

Ended up with 409.5 yards of three ply lace weight yarn that I'm calling Summer Twilight Skies Yarn:

Close-up with a dime to give you an idea of how thin it is

Another close-up so you can see the color variation. Blues are so hard to photograph!

The whole skein. Not sure yet what I'll make out of this, but I'm sure I'll find the perfect pattern for it in Ravelry!

This is some Abstract Fiber dyed roving called "Blackberry". Its a 60/20/20 blend of Merino/Yak/Silk that I received as a thank you from Wendy for helping out her Knights celebration. Found out a few days later that it was the Knight chip that Intel had released. ;-)

I did have another roving from my stash that I planned to spin in December, but its undyed Perendale that isn't terribly exciting. I'll admit that I'm going to be shallow and throw it back into the bin and start spinning this lovely stuff. 4 ounces of December Joy! Wouldn't you? ;-)

I have next year's spinning all planned out. If you're a Ravelry member you can check it out here.  Its at the top of the list and number for the month it will be spun (hopefully). I still have some stuff that's been in the stash for a while and it will get spun, just might take a little longer. ;-) There's at least another year's worth of fiber to be spun up and I'm sure it will continue to grow.

Looking back through the stash of stuff to be spun, there are a lot of undyed fibers in there. Think some natural dying and some acid dyes might have to be played with over the next year or two. With the acid dyes, I think something beyond Kool-Aid should be the way to go. I also need a drum carder. There's a lot of uncarded fiber in my stash that will have to be run through one before it gets spun up. The Gotland doesn't count because I plan just to flick the ends open and spin from the locks.

How is your spinning coming along? Neglected fiber? Stuff you bought but now don't love? What do you do with it? I have some in my Trade folder but no nibbles so far, so it went in the list for spinning next year.