Spinzilla: The Final Frontier

Spinzilla ended Sunday at midnight.  I was no where close to my goals for spinning, but I did at least get skeins finished and plied, and counted.  (Note to self:  Plan to take a week of vacation if you want to get more spinning done.  Do not take on new job contracts, wholesale orders, anything else.  And don't add on an extra almost 500 miles of driving during the week either.)

My grand total (by my count, not by Spinzilla counting techniques) was only 655 yards of plied yarn.

I had the Woodland Nymph batt, which you saw last week.

I also finished up my "Desert at Midnight" Corriedale from UrbanGypz.

Technical Specs:

Fiber:  4 oz of Corriedale wool top from UrbanGypz.

Ply: 2-ply.

Weight:  Sport(ish).

Yardage: 288.

I am extremely happy that I spun these two fibers up.  They are long-time stash fibers and I enjoyed spinning both of them quite a bit.  No specific plans for either of them at this point.  

I am planning to participate in a Turkey Trot spin through a Ravelry group I'm a member of, so I need to decide on what that's going to be for my next fiber spun.  I was originally going to try to spin two 4-oz braids for a shawl, but now that I've got a bunch of extra contract work on my plate, I think I should try to be realistic and perhaps spin something no more than 4 oz for a smaller project for the holidays.  

Spinzilla Days 3 and 4

Just over the halfway mark for the week of Spinzilla, and I've finally got a finished yarn to share!

Technical Specs:
Fiber:  3.2 oz batt from Butterfly Girl Designs, 90% superwash wool, 8% silk, 2% angelina.
Ply: 2-ply.
Weight:  Light fingering.
Yardage: 367 yards.

I love how this came out with bits of the hot pink silk peeking out from the darker merino.  No specific plans for this, but it had been in stash a while, and I wanted to get it spun up!

I also have finished spinning the singles of the UrbanGypz Corriedale that was my next fiber choice. I am hoping to get these plied up shortly, but today is pretty full as is tomorrow. (I have to go to ABQ two days in a row, which is 200 miles of driving each way, which definitely eats up the day!). Sunday is a work day for me, and the last day of Spinzilla, but I will make time to get this one done!

Spinzilla - Day 2

I finished spinning up the singles from the Woodland Nymph batt last night.  Those are ready to be plied today and then I can see what I've got so far for yardage.  I'm very happy this year that Spinzilla rules let me count the plied yardage.  I use singles much more infrequently than plied yarns and this way, I know I will have a finished yarn I'll be more likely to use.

I started spinning my next fiber in the line-up for the week, a gorgeous handpainted Corriedale roving from UrbanGypz - also a well-marinated stash fiber.

I've stripped the roving into lots of very narrow strips, in an attempt to mix up the colors.  So far, I'm loving the dusty purples and sandy browns in my singles.

Spinzilla - Day 1

Spinzilla kicked off yesterday (Monday), and I had my wheel ready to go!

I decided to start with one of my older stash items - a 3.2-oz batt from Butterfly Girl Designs.  This is a smoothly blended batt with 90% superwash merino, 8% silk and 2% angelina sparkle in the Woodland Nymph colorway.  It looks like a blend of hot pink silk and black, but the black actually has some really dark forest green in it and I think some walnut brown.

I got through about 2 ounces of this as singles, which I'm spinning on my Ashford Traveller.

(I've added a bit more since I snapped this shot yesterday afternoon.)  Hoping to finish up the singles today and ply on Wednesday!

Weekending

I had planned to have a fairly quiet weekend since this is my only weekend in September that I'm at home, but we were super busy at my DayJob, to the point that administration put some incentive pay in place, which I decided to take advantage of. I worked a full shift on Thursday, and then a couple of hours on Friday and a couple of hours on Saturday, and here it is Sunday and time to work my normal shift to start the week!

In between those work hours, I cleaned up my studio post-dyeing frenzy from Salida, and got to work on filling my display baskets for the trunk show at Yarn and Coffee in Santa Fe this upcoming weekend (and starting refilling the travel bins to take to the Heart of NM show the following weekend), as well as working on the last Heroines small shawl kits for this year, which go out at the end of this month.

I did do a bit of knitting on a couple of Sekret Knitting projects and I did allow myself a couple hours of fun time for spinning.

I also pulled some fiber out for Spinzilla.  I wanted to at least pull some tentative fiber choices together so I'd have time to do any prep beforehand.

These are (from top left-hand corner, clockwise):  Butterfly Girl batt (SW merino, silk and glitter), Urban Gypz Corriedale, Two If By Hand Falkland, Bride Flight Studio alpaca/merino/silk, and FatCatKnits BFL.  I tried for a mixture of some plain wool and some luxury blend, and various color families.  I'm going to try to get through at least the first four at a minimum, but we'll see how my time goes that week once we get there.

Spinning Friday: Moonbeams Diamonds and Pearls

I've got a really pretty little spin to share with you this week - delving deep into the stash to grab 2.2 ounces of perfectly blended and carded "Moonbeams" from a club I was in several years ago.

These were hand-carded rovings from Moonwood Farms, consisting of alpaca, milk fiber, tencel, bamboo and just a hint of angelina.  They spun up absolutely perfectly.  (Honestly if every prep was this nice, more people would be handspinners!)

I spun up a bobbin of singles and then wound that off into a center pull ball, and plied from the inside and outside ends of that.

Technical Specs:
Fiber:  2.2 oz of a luxury blend of alpaca, milk fiber, tencel, bamboo and angelina from Moonwood Farm.
Ply: 2 ply.
Weight:  Laceweight.
Yardage: 311 yards.

I have enough of this plied, I think, for a pretty lace cowl or scarf.  While the milky white color of this is really pretty, I'm torn - I think I might wear it more if it were another color.  I'm pretty pale and have a lot of "natural highlights" that are white in my hair, so I tend to avoid white or off-white since I really don't need more of that next to my face!  I'm not sure how it will dye, tho, and this is all I have of it, so I'm hesitant to just toss it in a dye pot.  It's also got some non-typical fibers in it and I'm not sure how all of those will take dye.  I'd hate for it to come out weirdly blotched.

So.... I will likely stash it for a bit to think about it and decide if I'll just put it up for sale, or keep it for myself.  It's lovely and drapey and SO SO soft.  A very enjoyable spin.

In other spinning tidbits, I think I've pulled together the fiber I'd like to spin for Spinzilla.  I'm trying not to bite off more than I can chew for that week, but I do want to try to get as much spun as I can and put some focused spinning time in that week.  I've decided on a several long-in-the-stash fibers, as well as a couple of slightly newer stash.   I'm trying to get a mix of fiber bases and preps, and different indie dyers, to try to keep myself motivated and interested during Spinzilla week.  More on those fibers in the next couple of weeks!  I've gotten signed up for the Spin-Off team again this year, and I'm really looking forward to it!