FO Friday: A Spinning Update

Happy Friday!

It's rare that I have a spinning finish but today, that's what I have. Many many moons ago, when I first bought my wheel (which was in February 2011), I bought some lovely French Blue Corriedale (dyed by Louet). I was enamored with the color. It was just a lovely, royal blue. So lovely.

I didn't spin it for awhile, preferring to just look at it and dream. I did, after all, have a newborn in the house. So, it sat, unspun, for quite awhile. And then we moved to California. And then we bought our house. And still it sat, unspun.

At some point, I started spinning the fiber........and I absolutely, 100% HATED the fiber. It was finicky to spin, did not spin consistently, there were blubs while I was spinning....I cursed the entire time I spun those singles

I had to call for reinforcements. An acquaintance of mine here in California is a spinner and she brought over her wheel and we spun and she educated me about a few things, including two-ply and chain-ply, and why I was probably having so much difficulty with the fiber. Turns out that I'm not the only one that has trouble with fiber dyed by Louet. Something in the processing matts the fiber, which leads to a bad time. Anyway, I made rolags of the remaining bit of fiber and while making the rolags helped, it did not solve the problem.

I spun what I had, plied it, and wound up with this:

This is a two-ply with some BFL that I had already spun (and did not have trouble).

I had some left on the bobbin, had a lesson on chain-plying, and wound up with this:

I had maybe 30 yds of bulky, chain-plied yarn. I thought that was the end of it.........boy was I wrong.

A couple of months ago, while cleaning in Stormageddon's room, I came across a little ziplock bag. The bag had a notebook, a little notions pouch, and about 2 oz. of what I had long-since dubbed Asshole French Blue Corriedale.

Dammit. Seriously, I was ready to cry when I found that.

But, I'm stubborn to a fault and I was going to spin that crap if it killed me.

On Wednesday afternoon, I made rolags, and spun the singles. That wasn't horrible, but it wasn't fun. Yesterday, I plied......and it was a mess. But, you know what? IT'S DONE!

This is around 40 yds of chain-plied hot mess. Between this one and the other one, I have about 70 yds of worsted-bulky, thick-n-thin hot mess of yarn. And Little Man wants a hat. I might be able to squeak one out.


::sigh::


Hope you're having a fabulous Friday. I have another post that should be up regarding some fabulous news and I wanted to keep it separate. So, you know, go find it :) If you're reading this before 9am PDT, it won't be up. It's not going up until 9am, whereas this post will go up at midnight :)