Spindlitis

I received the latest spindle order yesterday. This puts me up to six Bosworths! I am making up for lost time. First up, two skinny Cherry maxis and one skinny Cherry mini.

The cherry midi is 18 grams. I need to test it out on finer fiber. The two maxis will be my go to plying spindles, although they are light enough to use for regular projects.

And this batch are my butternuts! I don’t know why I have this fascination with butternut wood, but I do.

I have a regular Butternut maxi with a walnut shaft, a regular Butternut Midi with a walnut shaft and the skinny Butternut Midi with a walnut shaft that was my first purchase. I just like the lighter whorl with the dark shaft. There’s an interesting difference in the skinny versus regular midi. The regular has a slightly slower spin but longer. It’s likely due to the slightly heavier whorl. There’s a six gram difference between the two. I’m expecting the two Midis to be my workhorse spindles. I already reach for the skinny Midi for any new project. The Maxi is a nice plying spindle, when I need something heavier. I have to keep the weight down on it, but it works fine if I ply about two ounces at a time.

And this is my first finished yarn!

This is the dyed corriedale I was spinning on the cherry Midi. I plied it on the butternut maxi. It’s three ply and I used my plying stick to ply. The plying stick is so much better than tennis balls. I wrap the singles on it, like I’d wrap on a nostepinne. When you ply, the twist will run up the yarn to the point where it’s touching the stick. It stops there. The stick is lightweight and easy to hold. I can set the project down and pick it up later, without getting anything messed up. It fits my style of spinning.

I’m trying to finish a couple of knitting projects that need to be done by the weekend. Abraham’s birthday is tomorrow, so the baby sweater needs to be finished. And his mom’s birthday was last week, so I’m giving her the socks I started. I’m close to finishing those. When I get those two projects done, I’ll be ready to start knitting handspun socks. I’ve finished a couple of skeins of hand dyed yarn and the grey corriedale is about halfway finished. I want to spindle spin one of the six ounce bags of roving I bought for socks. These yarns are thicker than commercial sock yarns, so maybe the socks will be a bit faster to knit.