Well, well, well ...

Here we are, almost a year later.

I have had so many projects over the course of the last several months, it would be exhausting to try to track them all down and recount them. So, instead, I'm going to focus on the newest thing I've been doing -- spinning.

I learned to spin some time in 2007, and played with drop spindles off and on for the next year or so. I never made yarn worth using, really, because I was still in that terrible "I can't waste good fiber on my mediocre beginner's spinning project!" phase -- not realizing, of course, that using good fiber makes a tremendous difference to your experience and final product. I got my beautiful Kromski Minstrel wheel in the summer of 2008 (a birthday present from my ex-boyfriend), and fell in love. Unfortunately, though, in early 2009 I was in a bike accident that pretty well wrecked one of my legs, and I couldn't sit up long enough to spin for ages, let alone treadle. So, for years, my wheel just sat there collected dust.

I have an etsy listing to thank for my renewed interest in spinning -- a listing for some Lisa Frank-esque neon rainbow fiber had me thinking about the most ridiculous thrummed mittens a person could make. So of course, it had to happen.

 The grey there is The Fibre Co.'s Cumbria Worsted, in Hadrian's Wall.

But the thing about thrumming is that it takes nowhere near 4oz of fiber to make thrummed mittens.  So I had this 3oz or so of roving left over, and I decided that dammit, it was time. I took my beautiful baby Kromski out from where she'd been gathering dust, oiled her up, got her a fresh drive band, and off we went.

Turns out, not only had I not forgotten how to spin, it was actually easier and less frustrating than I remembered! And how funny, I was finally allowing myself to spin with nice fluffy BFL rather than whatever matted leftovers I scrounged from friends and/or incredibly slippery merino-silk that was the only thing the local place carried. Coincidence? I THINK NOT.

  Spun to about a laceweight single, more or less -- and so much more even than I'd anticipated!

I navajo-plied it to maintain the color changes. Of course, I had split the braid lengthwise down the middle, so the color repeats were half the length they would have been if I'd used all of them, so I was a little concerned about the clown-barfiness of this yarn. Especially once I skeined it up!

 As it turned out, though, it was pretty much perfect for the hat I decided to make with it. This is Death Frisbee, done with the remains of the mitten yarn. And I had enough left over to make a tiny rainbow hat for the 5-yo daughter of a friend, too!

Since then, I've been having more and more fun with spinning. I've been experimenting with different fibers (turns out I'm in love with Polwarth!), and getting some gorgeous gradient fibers from FatCatKnits.

This is her Dragonfly colorway, spun to about a cobweb single, which ended up as the most even handspun I've ever created

I was so proud of myself! For about a month, there, I pretty much introduced myself as "Hi, My name's Maggie, want to see the amazing yarn I spun myself?"

But even as a finished object, yarn is still something that's begging to be turned into something more. So this became a shawl for BeardBoy's mom.

I've got some more beautiful things in the works, too, which I'll try to share in a timelier manner.

Til next time!