A Day At The Clinic

Spinning clinic that is. I had such a blast. I can't wait for the fall to learn more wonderful things to do with a spinning wheel (carding, combs, etc). Yesterday I went up to Gemini Fibres for their spinning clinic class with Wendy Whelan. I can't say enough good things about her classes. She is just amazing. This is the third class I've taken with her and I've learned so much in all of them. What you see here is a result of playing with different fibres, learning to make a rolag, trying to do long draft(and I still haven't "gotten" it), and getting Navajo plying. What a fun thing the Navajo plying is. The next time I start a single I am going to try and do it with Navajo plying in mind. It is so much fun and you don't have left overs if one bobbin has more singles than the to other bobbin.

I also finished spinning the second bobbin of the blue yarn I dyed. I hope I have the underspun single problem solved. I respun the bobbin I was working on and finished spinning the rest of the singles last night. I two plied it this morning and had a bit of a challenge towards the end. The wheel was giving me a horrible time spinning. I don't know if the bobbin was too full or what but it got very hard to treadle. Finally the yarn broke. I have no idea where the end is. I tried using a piece of scotch tape to find it and I still couldn't find it. So I give up for now. I am going to bring it to our SnB on Tuesday and maybe Maggie will be kind enough to help me again. She managed to find the end the last time I had this problem.


Of course a day at Gemini wouldn't be complete without picking up some new toys. So here we have the Granny (on the right) and Linum Forrester spindles. One is about 18 grams and the other about 19 grams. I've already been playing with both of them and they are just as great as all my other Forrester spindles. I also got another bobbin for the Victoria. I find I need at least 4 bobbins so if I wind full bobbins of singles I will have an extra bobbin for plying so I don't have to wind onto a niddy noddy to free up the bobbin before I finish plying.

This is my new plying friend. It is the Schacht Matchless tensioned lazy kate. It is also the first horizontal lazy kate I have used. The built in lazy kate on the Joy and the lazy kate that comes with the Victoria are both vertical. It is so much smoother when the lazy kate is horizontal. I don't think I will be using anything else. I did have one problem that I need to fix. If you look closely to the top of the photo, one of the rubber rings popped off and went flying. I haven't been able to find it yet. I am confident I will be able to find something at the hardware store to replace it. When I go this afternoon I am going to get a few of them so I have extras in case I get to anxious again and forget to hold onto the rubber ring before I remove the stick.

On the knitting front, I am almost done with the first sleeve on the sweater. I should get that done today and start the second one. The good thing is once I cast off the sleeves I will just have those ends to tuck in because I've already done the rest and it is in the round so no sewing together. I just have to pick out buttons and sew them on. The second sweater is in sport weight yarn so it will go faster. Now if I could only find the time to block the blanket before I go away on the 17th I will be in great shape.