chronicle of a beginning spinner

oh yeah, this spinning thing suits me. it's very zen. well, theoretically it's very zen; that is, i can feel how it will become so. most of the time i am still too tense, but i can feel it for moments. i am doing much better with the grey shetland i bought at the cowichan fleece and fibre fair than i did with the nice, commercial top that came with the wheel. i just couldn't draft that properly until i started doing it from the fold; then it was, wow, so much easier.

however, spinning from the fold seems sort of a waste when one has long staple, because one folds that in half. but otherwise i guess i have to separate the roving even more than i did, and predraft the heck out of it. i also think that i need to do a longdraw with that fibre.

the grey shetland is very fluffy and lofty, and while it has lots of little noils, i am actually managing to mostly control the thickness of the single otherwise. i seem to tend towards spinning very thin, and today i practiced to get a little thicker single instead. my twist is really good, too; it's not been as hideously overtwisted as before anymore.

i'm sitting further back as well. i didn't start out real close to the orifice anyway, because it makes sense to be back some so i have more length of yarn to control before it goes onto the bobbin. but i'm now about half a metre back, and that gives me a lot of opportunity to smooth bits out that were a bit too thin, and i am still close enough to be able to see.

i'm basically spinning in some unholy mixture of worsted and longdraw, *snicker*. inchworm didn't work well for me at all; the yarn was very uneven. i might've had too much roving in my hand. in any case worsted technique works for me, from the fold works for me, and i can feel longdraw happening as well. i'm happy with my progress.

if you have no idea what i am talking about, but want to: here's a great page with short videos introducing basic techniques.

ebook haul

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#8 cat

once he trusted me enough to let me touch him, i knew it wasn't gonna be long before he'd move in, but #8 is quite intrepid as it turns out, and now follows me anywhere, even when scared. it's kinda endearing, but i know my place; i am The Purveyor of Food. though he does like the petting too; he even occasionally interrupts the eating to butt his head into my leg.

i am amused. bacchus is not. two new cats in his house! but he's remarkably peaceful with both the new toms. just the way he walks around and casts glances shows that he's enormously put out. i am petting him a lot. and i'm gonna build a cat tower; we need more places for cats to settle on. shadow dug up my grey shetland roving yesterday (which is in a bag); luckily i discovered her kneading it before she had felted the lot.

#8 looks in better shape in this picture than he is; he's basically skin and bones. he turns his face away when i try to look into his mouth, but i expect what i'll find once i get to see is not very many teeth, and quite possibly some badly infected ones. his fur is matted in several places, and his tail looks ratty, but today he is cleaning himself, so getting some food which he could eat easily into him was probably the main thing needed. he doesn't seem to have any fresh injuries; the missing ear healed before we saw him for the first time.

guess he needs a name now. the paramour doesn't like "ear". don't understand why not.

things done today

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