Spinning Round-Up: April

I'm a bit late this month, but this was because my husband took last week as annual leave from work, so my usual routine went out of the window simply because I was working around him!

So, what's been happening with me spinning-wise over the last month?  Well, there's been a bit, but not a huge amount.

I finished the brightly coloured Neptune roving from World of Wool and I'm quite pleased with it.

It's a 3ply yarn and these were the three balls of singles I made:

After plying and washing, the skein looks like this:

Here's a close-up:

From a distance, the yarn has an overall brown look to it, because there were so many colours in it.  I'll be interested in seeing how it knits up and if those colours and the barber-polling make the knitted fabric look more brown.  Time will tell.

Anyway, the skein weighs 93g and is 267m in length.  Not bad!

That was it for finished spinning in April.  As for Spins in Progress:

I bought a bump of a merino blend in various pinks (because it was on offer) and when it arrived, well, all I can say is WOW.  It didn't look *that* pink on-screen!  I've divided the fibre into thirds and have stripped it down into narrow strips, trying to separate the colours (not always successfully) and am spinning it into three singles which will be plyed together once it's all done (it's taking a while; I think it's the brightness putting me off):

It's brighter than this.  One of the colours is called Barbie!

I also got out my hand carders and some oddments of fibre I'd got and have been making rolags, just to practice (because I'm not very good at hand-carding and need to work on my technique) and am spinning those on my Turkish spindle.

As you can see, I haven't got very far with this, but pick it up and do a few twirls when I've got a free minute or two.

My big spin of the year is very slow-going and fairly time-consuming.  Because I'm making the batts I'm spinning, I have to first weigh the yarn for each batt (15g BFL, 10g silk, 5g Welsh, 5g merino) before putting them through my drum carder, carefully pulling them off and then putting it back through the carder a second time, to further blend the fibres.  After that, I then spin the batts (two batts per bobbin).  So, it's taking time and I'm not as enthusiastic as I could be because I don't keep my drum carder downstairs, so have to go and get it each time I want to make a new batch of batts (I've been making two at a time).  On top of that, I've developed a slight problem with my right foot (plantar fasciitis) and doing too much spinning on my wheel seems to be exacerbating that, so I'm having to pace myself (as well as doing the exercises I've been given).  So far, I've spun three bobbins of yarn, which is six batts and I've prepared another two batts.

I've no idea why the Wii board is against the wall; I've just noticed it!

I suspect that as it's black, that doesn't help as, let's face it, spinning something bright and colourful is much more exciting to do!  Still, get it done I shall and I am enjoying the whole process of making a sweater starting with a few bags of fibre.

I've also been using some more of my handspun, so will show that off soon as it's not quite finished yet!

I'm going to spend some time this morning finishing putting the warp threads on my long-neglected rigid heddle loom as I have a project in mind.  More on that another time as well.