And now for something completely different

In addition to the knitting, I have recently become reinspired by my spindles - so today's post is a quick update on some knitting projects, and then much blather talk about my spinning.

First, I think I mentioned that I started the Alhambra socks, which were the last sock club installment from the Illuminations sock club.  I made it all the way down the leg before stalling out on the heel flap, not because I can't do it, but just because it's felt like too much effort to get my head around knitting stranded colorwork back and forth (e.g. while purling).  I've done it before, and I know I'll do it here (I have a theory that this is one of three pairs of socks I'd like to finish before Sock Summit so I can wear them to show off), it's just that it is one thing too many right now.  But this loveliness will pull me back in very soon, I can feel it.

Isn't that beautiful?  I rotated it so you can see more of the motifs.

Yup.  I love these socks.  They will get finished, no doubt about it.

I also cast on for a hat and a shawl which I will show when there is something more to see (I apparently got a bit excited about doing something new! and exciting! in the face of grading (what's the opposite of an exclamation mark? I need one here) and conference program planning).

But meanwhile, I also got re-bitten by the spindle bug.  Not because I don't love my wheels - in fact, I have finished one bobbin of the gorgeous Corriedale that Erica sent me:

And I will get to the second half soon.  But, for reasons which I will share sooner rather than later, it's spindles that are pulling me back into their whirling orbit.  I finished the first spindle full of a gorgeous fiber that I started far too long ago, a silk/cashmere blend, if I remember correctly, from Twist: Yarns of Intrigue, and I plied and set it.

That's 100 yards of 2-ply laceweight loveliness (5/8 oz), spun and plied on my Golding spindle, which I love so much that I apparently bought another one when I wasn't looking.  Oops.  The new one came today, and I am already plotting which fiber to use it with.

I am also playing with what I think is some Merino from Chris at Briar Rose Fibers.  I have a little bump of this in stash, and I picked up my small Spindlewood spindle (bought when I was at the Golden Gate Fiber Institute nearly two years ago), and got started on that.

Isn't it a gorgeous spindle?  Look at that wood.

I do love beautiful wood.

I am also over half an ounce into an ounce of chocolate brown suri alpaca that I bought at last fall's Dixon Fiber Festival (does anyone else get just a bit freaked out by how much suri alpaca fiber resembles human hair? or is that just me?).  The plan is to spin that, and then to spin the ounce of white suri alpaca that I also got and ply them together.  (I think I need to find myself a nostepinne for plying - any recommendations?  I'd also love to find a small sample niddy-noddy of the one-yard size; I can't decide whether to look now, or to wait until I'm at Sock Summit and get something there.)  I am thinking that yarn will become a little cap, maybe?  I'm spinning it on the larger Spindlewood spindle that I won as a door prize at GGFI, but I somehow am not bonding with that spindle the way I have been with my other two, so it may become a pretty spindle to look at, rather than one of my workhorses.  Pictures of that yarn next time, along with the very very fine cotton I'm spinning on my takhli, and the very very fine wool I'm spinning on my kuchulu. 

I don't know why I forget how much I love my spindles.  Last night, I spun a half an ounce of what will probably be a fingering-weight two-ply in a little over an hour.  That's not too much longer than it would take me to spin the same amount worsted (woollen's a lot faster) on my wheel.  And I find that I am not as uncomfortable spinning for a long period of time with the spindles as I can get at the wheel - sitting is just hard for me, but with a spindle, I move around more than I do with a wheel.  I guess what I'm saying is not that I'm giving up my wheels, but that I'm glad I have my spindles, too.  (Including the new one, and the other new one that's coming in the mail early next week, I think.  You can't do that with wheels!)

So, more pictures next time, including some from Tehachapi (I'm going up there again on Saturday).  And very soon, coming to a not-apolitical blog near you, a little righteous indignation vis-a-vis publicly-funded education and state budgeting priorities.  You know you can't wait!