This year pasted in a blur of spinning, encouraging others to “just keep spinning” and more spinning. Spinzilla is a whorl wind week for many handspinners all over the world and Instagram kind of ‘blows up’ during this week of crazy spinning. I had the pleasure of being Team Captain for Team SweetGeorgia this year and we hosted two Spin Ins for everyone to attend. Our last one is this week and I’m looking forward to seeing many people’s finished yarns.
We have had a lot going on this past few weeks and I decided to try to beat my yardage from last year but keep it simple and gentle. If I would be able to, I’d be happy. Last year I was able to spin 5,262 yards (2.99 miles) of yarn. I was really pleased with my progress since the year before I had spun 3,918 yards (2.23 miles) of yarn. Each year I seem to make a good amount of progress and speed. This year was particularly nice – my long draw has improved a huge amount in speed and evenness. I am really pleased with all of my yarns this year:
My Spinzilla credit this year was in fact higher than last year at 5,432yards (3.09 miles). The light grey, caramel yarn is a local CVM/Suffolk and meat Merino cross from 2002. It is a local fleece from a sheep named Daisy that I bought from a local Suffolk farmer.
She had had the fleece processed into roving-like batts and I split them horizontally, spinning them as was. It was a lovely, toothy fibre that has turned into a lovely, toothy yarn! It’s not coarse per se but definitely not super soft. I threw it into the dye pots that night with Black Walnut to show our family who was staying with us what natural dyeing entails. I had a lot of fun watching the yarn change colour slightly. It’s not completely different from the original but definitely warmer and caramel. I’m excited to swatch with this yarn and I’m hoping it’ll work for a Fireside Pullover by Jane Richmond.
Lastly, I decided to do the responsible thing and finish the natural crossbreed that I’ve been working on throughout the Spring and Summer. You may remember that I’ve been working on a Lemongrass poncho by Joji Locatelli and ran out of yarn for the sleeves and turtleneck. I spun this yarn on a high ratio (15.5:1) using long draw. It has a firm twist and good stitch definition.
From the remaining 343 grams that I hadn’t finished, I spun 518 yards of 3-ply and 60 yards of 2-ply. While I don’t need that much yarn to finish the sweater, I’ve been thinking about a pair of mittens from this yarn and thought it would be great for that application. I’m excited to finish the sweater once the yarn is dry! For more on this yarn, I wrote quite a bit here and the Ravelry page is here. I’m excited to keep knitting away this week and since it’s Canadian Thanksgiving here, I’m looking forward to some knitting today.
How was Spinzilla for you? Did you meet your goals? Are you looking forward to next year?
