Monday, May 24, 2010

taking a break

...from knitting...

...and based on the date of last publication, from blogging as well :P
In any case, I decided I needed to make some headway on the rather large pile of personal spinning fibers...so I grabbed a couple of bags from HelloYarn and split the fibers up for spinning, aiming for a thinnish single with plans to turn it into a 2-ply. After spinning, the jumbo bobbin was nearly full...and the singles, I thought, were rather lovely.

Normally when I make 2 plies, I wind everything into an andean plying bracelet and ply away until everything is done - I rarely ever split my singles onto two separate bobbins for plying, mostly because 1) I'm lazy and don't plan ahead and 2) I like making sure all of my singles are "consumed" and I honestly don't think I could balance my yardage out on separate bobbins. What I hadn't been thinking of, however, is the fact that I have never gone to the trouble to andean ply quite this much yarn before.

I at least had the foresight to wind onto something other than my hand - thanks to this post from Rosemary Knits that suggested the use of a book for winding on. As I was winding away in preparation, the foolishness of this idea began to sink in.

Behold: over 1200 yards of energized singles wound onto a book, ready to be transferred for plying. The sheer winding on process was enough to trigger some slight muscle soreness in my arms from holding the book out and the winding-on motion.

viewed from another angle, you can see the spatula I stuck into the book to take the place of my finger (had I been winding onto my hand). Clearly, if I had wound all this onto my hand, I would likely no longer have circulation in the hand, much less the finger....

stay tuned to see how it all turned out :)

3 comments:

Monika said...

How do you get those singles off the book for plying? I've never done this before, I always spin on two bobbins for my plied yarns.

cayli said...

Wow, you are a braver woman then I. I have tried plying large amounts of singles this way and it usually ends up in frustration.

Oiyi said...

I am intrigued with this method! I am off to find out more info. I can't wait to see your finished yarn.