weekend spinning

The snow is leaving us, little by little. In a few more days, it should all be gone! The south face of the mountain is clear already, and the chickens are enjoying scratching up the earth again.

The garden gate is still frozen in place, making it difficult to get out there and tidy up. Rather than force the issue and take a snow shovel to it, I elected to wait for it to melt and in the meantime I decided to do some spinning on the Great Wheel.

I have finished spinning all that I had carded up of the finnsheep/angora blend. I am spinning a cop of the blend, and then spinning a cop of finnsheep, and have been plying them together.

I also made myself a lazy kate for plying the cops. I was having trouble with them when I turned them on their sides, so I have fashioned a method where I can stand them up. It is working a little bit better, but I still need to make some modifications to improve the design. The cops don't spin freely, and I think they need a disk to ride on, so I will cut them from the plastic cutting boards, and see if that makes a difference. Currently, I slip the cop off of the spindle and directly onto the double point needle, which rides in the lazy kate.

So far, I have a total of 240 yards of the blend. I'm still uncertain about what I will use it for, but one thing I do know is that I am keeping this for myself. If I get enough, I may decide to knit a sweater/jacket.

Wanda of Fiberjoy has started a new blog about weekend spinning, and has kindly invited me to post. I hope I can keep up the pace, but if not-- I can always read with interest what others are up to! I encourge any other spinners out there to sign up!