My spinning group (officially now the "Over The Edge" spinners) that is using Lexi Boeger's book "PluckyFluff" to help us spin outside our comfort zones is making progress! Granted, it's 5-hours-a-month worth of progress, turtle-speed but I like the thought of spending a year on this!
So far ... nub yarn, great, lots of combos; candystripe yarn, wow, metallic thread is really visible and we all spun muuuch tighter singles than we thought; mine is back on the niddy to help set the twist after washing, weighting to dry, and steaming. And we are now half-way through the loop yarn -- that is to say, we have spun the singles!
The get-together for making the loops is this Tuesday, and my homework assignment was to figure out ways we could spin this. One of our intrepid spinners determined that a 3/8" dowel fits in the orifice of the Ashford wheel, so we plan to try to convert the three Ashfords of the group into Quill wheels by sharpening the ends of 3/8" dowels. I'm hoping they grip enough! The Louet orifice is larger, so I may try out my other wheels to see if another maker has a 3/8" inside diameter on their orifice. And, I have a Mother Marion kick spindle, so I'm thinking that'll be what I use :-)
But anyway!! I wanted to pass on the cool ideas for our novelty yarns. One lady has already started a "shawl sampler", a simple triangle shawl in garter with each yarn used in turn, starting at the point and working up. I was emailed a suggestion to make a lap blanket (since the fibers are generally not soft!) using the Island Embrace Blanket pattern by Cat Borhdi, so I think that's what I will do.
And then I ran across this great website: www.yarnmuseum.com and noticed alot of the FO's are knit purses. There's a grand idea! We have a tapestry weaver among the group, too, so I'm guessing she'll weave a tote or tapestry from her yarns. I can hardly wait, grin! And as soon as my loop yarn is done, I'll start working on my lap blanket.
The yarns there are quite inspiring, and the FO's make me itch to spend more than 5 hours a month. But since I'm also working on spinning sock yarns, well, there's alot going on ... not to mention the cotton spinning that ought to get kick started and all the spindle projects and and ... LOL!!
(posted by me this day on Spinning_Over_The_Edge)
