Looking At The World Through Rose Coloured Glasses

The UPS man is on my good list today. He brought me my merino/silk blend that I ordered from handknitting.com. I had originally ordered SAF from Nancy before I had ordered a kilo of the stuff from Knit-Knackers. It is soft to work with and inexpensive if I ruin it as I learn to spin on the wheel. Everything happens for a reason. Turns out the SAF was back ordered by Louet Sales so I changed the order to the merino/silk blend in soft rose. I really like the colour and this stuff is so nice to spin. I have the oriental jade colour and it spins like a dream. I hope it will be as easy to spin on the wheel when I get it at the end of the month.

Maggie is a GENIOUS!!!!! That girl ROCKS!!! She is just amazing. As noted in my post from this morning, I am trying to two ply the 100 grams of wool top I spun over the weekend. I've been having an awful time because it keeps curling back on itself. The makeshift lazy kate I did with the shoe box wasn't working because the yarn on one of the tp rolls kept wanting to wind itself around the needle. Maggie came up with the wonderful idea of stuffing the tp roll with tissues and then reinserting the needle into the rolls. This way the rolls would be tensioned and I'd have a tensioned lazy kate. I should mention that the needles I am using are the only pair of straights I have (I don't use straights anymore and I gave them all to my daughter). Said needles are 10mm bamboo needles and not very easy to push through a tissue filled (well paper towel to be exact) tp roll. I did finally manage it and it works!!! The rolls don't turn around easily anymore and with the shoe box directly below me, instead of at an angle, the yarn isn't wraping around the needles anymore. The plying is still going to be a LONG and SLOW process. There is a lot of yarn and if I am not mistaken I will have pretty good yardage out of it when I'm done.