FREAKING LACE WEIGHT!!!

I only just realised that I haven't posted about this spinning project like AT ALL. Weird. Especially since it took me nearly a year to spin all 4 oz. of fibre (lame).

I started spinning this bump of fibre back at the end of March 2011. Yes that's right, nearly a year ago. I decided to try spinning up some rolags using my new wheel ratios I'd gotten at Xmas.

I've been playing with long draw for a bit, but wasn't really feeling like I had quite gotten the hang of it. I thought there was possibly some magic of the rolag that was somehow missing with my previous attempts sans rolag. I think my current comfort zone is some kind of semi-supported long draw. But long-draw looks so badass that I want to go whole hog.

How badass is that? How can I resist such awesomeness?

Well I'm working on it. Something I've found when working with the faster ratios is that it takes much more force to get the wheel going "optimal" speed. So for most of the spinning of this yarn I think I was only spinning at half mast. I'm going to work on that.

Though making the rolags was quicker and more relaxing that I anticipated, they sucked to store while I spun them up. I only prepared half the fibre into rolags and it still took me several months to spin through them all. Life gets in the way.

I spun directly from the roving for the second half of the fibre. So 1 ply was woolen spun and the other was worsted spun. As it turned out, the first woolen spun single was much much longer than the second worsted spun single. I wonder if there was some magic that happened in the rolag preparation that extended the fibre. Extra air whipped in or something. I was pretty even with dividing up the original fibre (or so I thought).

Remember that time back in September when I declared a personal spin-in? Yeah that never quite worked out. Again, life gets in the way. In fact, Fiona (my wheel) has been sitting in a nice sunny corner of the apartment pretty much since then.

Until last week when I reminded myself how relaxing spinning yarn is while discussing zen activities with a coworker. I became determined to finish up the second half of the fibre (DETERMINED) and plied up ALL the yarn in the space of a few days (DETERMINED).

2-ply (one ply worsted, one ply woolen)
'Banana Split' Wild Hare Fiber Studio
100% Blue Faced Leicester
4 oz.
Approx. 780 yards
20 wpi

After washing, thwacking and drying, I measured and calculated the yardage. Approx. 780 yards of 20 wpi! I kind of blew my own mind. I know I've been spinning finer and finer lately, but that's NUTS! I'm so excited. I'm going to run off and spin more yarn now. For reals ;)

20 WPI!!! Ok, last time. Now, I spin more!