Saturday, December 19, 2009

Today's Yarn


Today was all spinning, spinning, spinning, with a few loads of laundry thrown in.  It was a frigid 15 degrees outside, so we all arranged ourselves near the woodstove and worked the long day away.  (Yes, those are mattresses in the front room.  I'm taking advantage of this perfectly good woodstove I've got, and am sleeping near it for the winter. I have no problem sacrificing convention for comfort!) I had two Netflix movies I wanted to watch, forgetting that they're foreign films, meaning I'd have to watch the captions - NOT compatible with spinning where I have to watch the yarn.  Hm.

So I watched (listened to) several episodes of Good Neighbors, a 1970's british sitcom about a suburban London couple that decides to leave the rat race and become self-sufficient, on their suburban lot.  Great series!  I read about it from Mama Pea several months ago, and I'm SO glad!

I can't get over how cute the cats are.  They're brothers, rescued from a humane society in August and I love how well they get along with each other. Pancho, the one on the right gets along well with both dogs too.  Especially Maggie, my younger dog.

After approximately 10 hours of spinning and plying, I got the below 202 yards of green yarn.  When I added the felting yarn to make the color look the way I wanted, it changed the texture, and it's not soft any more.  The felting yarn is Merino lambswool (should be plenty soft), so I suspect it's remnants of the natural dyes they used which rendered it rough.  I calculated how much more yarn I'll get if I finish spinning the batts I made earlier this week, and it's not enough to make the heelhead scarf.  I'll have 362 yards, and the scarf requires 450-600 yards.  That's a little heartbreaking.  I thought I had enough raw wool prepared, but I was wrong. I have one more full day here before I leave for Oregon, and finishing this yarn is not the best use of the time, if I can't use it for that project.  Of course, now that I've gotten attached to doing that project, I sense some trips to local yarn stores in my near future.  Hopefully they're open on Sundays.


I have an ulterior motive in doing all this craft stuff.  I want to figure out if there's a way I can start a business renting goats out to eat weeds and quit my day job one of these days.  I expect that I'll need a winter source of income, so am learning and trying things out now, before I get the goats, to see if any of these crafts has moneymaking potential.  I just learned to spin about 9 months ago. Today's yarn is the 4th batch I've made.   So far, I'm not feeling the zen in spinning, and with how much labor this has taken, I don't think it will pay enough.  It was a valuable exercise though.  Now - what to do with 202 yards of rough, green merino/romney yarn and 3.6 ounces of prepared fleece, ready to spin.. ...

3 comments:

  1. Ohh I love that show "Good Neighbours" I have them all on DVD. Your wool looks lovely.

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  2. I really like the wool, but I know what you mean about time. I often DON"T stop on these kind of things and then find myself over-extended and not enjoying what I want because of the rush. It looks like a lovely yarn for January. Pick up something at your local shop for your heelscarf and then pick this up when you come back...if you rush it at all, you may not be happy. Or put off that project until January, too. I'm really impressed that you've taken on some major knitting challenges. I did my felted slippers/clogs as my so-far most challenging and really like them...so much I've worn a hole in both soles- good thing they are doubled!

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  3. I really admire all you do with your fleece. Wool. Yarn. Whatever. (I don't know enough about the whole process to begin to understand it. But I can appreciate the work that goes into it.)

    Don't the animals add so much "life" to a home? Plus, they're all lucky little duckies in that you've provided such a good home for them.

    Will you be able to blog/keep in touch when you're away for Christmas?

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