pirated.

Recently, I have been feeling more and more that my time is not my own. There is always laundry, cooking and household chores calling. The kids are at an age that requires constant attention and interaction. There is a sense that I am not in control of my time to a large extent. The little bit of time that is left is relegated to tidying up, making lunches and meal planning, exercising, and maybe if I’m not too tired, a little bit of spinning in the evening. Sometimes, I can pick up my needles when the stars all align and the kids both nap at the same time. Which is never.

It sounds like I’m complaining. I’m not. This is a fact and reality of the stage of life we are in at this time. This time when our kids under 5 years of age is such a short period of time. I will never get this time back once it is over and we will be into such a different stage once they enter school. That’s okay. That sits well with me – we naturally progress through these many stages in life.

James, Norah, Charlie {Charlotte is missing because she wouldn’t stay still but made an appearance here recently}

The reality is, between the blog and monthly videopost, sometimes I don’t have lots of content to share with you that is directly knitting and spinning related. Hence the quiet lately. I’m actually okay with that. Are you? Slightly fewer posts will continue indefinitely here as Casa del Welford as I would rather post sometimes than not at all.

So this handspun, which was November 2014’s club fibre for Spunky Eclectic, was the perfect personification of how I’ve been feeling lately! Amy was inspired by the Pirates of the Caribbean with her colours.

Fibre :: Spunky Eclectic November 2014 Fibre Club – Mixed Merino

Colourway :: Black Pearl

Finished Yarn :: traditional 2-ply, ~ 350 yards of DK

I was so excited about this fibre so I started it on my wheel immediately but after the first bobbin, I wasn’t super happy with it. I made a plying ball, plied and skeined it, and set it aside. During the time it was sitting, I bought my Lendrum and decided this was the perfect project to finish as a good break-in-my-new-wheel project. In the end, it’s not my favourite handspun ever but I actually have an idea for a scarf that I might knit up in the summer.

One of the reasons that I am not super happy with this is because I was practicing ‘spinning from across the top’ – which is quite hard. Jacey Boggs Faulkner talks about this in her Craftsy class Drafting from Worsted to Woollen. If you haven’t checked out the class and would like an advanced beginner to intermediate class for spinning, this is definitely a must-buy class. She recommends learning this technique for a myriad of reasons, such as:

• being able to just sit down at your wheel and begin spinning without having to pre-draft a bunch,
• preserving colour repeats,
• not always having to stripe down your fibre,
• etc.

While I appreciate that it’s a good skill to have in your ‘toolbox’, I’m not sold. I actually don’t like having that much fibre in my hands at once – it’s too much! I like having smaller, pre-drafted bits. And I have yet to come across a braid of fibre that I am absolutely dying to preserve the colour repeat or feel unable to if I am not able to spin across the top.  Usually, if I want to preserve the colour repeat, I’ll just pull small pieces off, spin and repeat.

The result of practicing this new technique was quite a thick and thin, uneven handspun yarn. Once knit up, it will be disguised in the knit stitches but when I can’t help feeling a little disappointed!

What new skills have you been attempting lately? Care to share how it’s been going?

Happy Spinning :)