This Week's Spinning

Since I got my spinning wheel a couple of weeks back, I've spun two 4 ounce braids of fiber! I absolutely love the process. I enjoy my wheel, I enjoy the feeling of the fiber running through my fingers, and I doubly enjoy knitting with the finished product.

This week, I got around to spinning the very first braid of fiber I ever bought: a beautiful braid of BFL from Tomorrow Farm in the colorway "tranquility" (link is for the colorway in merino- it doesn't look like they have any more BFL) 

I split the fiber in half and spun the first half as it was- aiming for a fairly thick single (especially for me- I tend to spin on the finer side) The second half I split in half again before spinning it, and again aimed for the singles to be on the thicker side. Here are both of them- I'm holding the first one, and the second one is still on the wheel:

Plying was the next job. I don't have a lazy kate, but I do have old straight knitting needles that fit through the bobbin, and through the hole where the lazy kate is supposed to be on the wheel. See the head of the needle circled in this picture?

Another pretty shot of the plied yarn still on the bobbin- I hardly got it all to fit!

There was a little bit of single left after I had plied everything off the other bobbin. Usually I will ply the left over bit with a spindle, using the andean plying bracelet. 

This time, after I had wrapped the bracelet, the single decided it wanted to become art all by itself:

The energy of the twist in the single causes it to keep it's shape, even when you poke and prod the sculpture a bit. it's pretty sweet! I currently have it on display in a dish on an end table in my my living room:

While the left over single was sculpting itself, the rest of the yarn had been skeined up and put in a bath:

After it had been finished and dried, it became this lovely skein of the softest, squishy-est yarn ever.