Spinning, Sofa-ing, Splashing

I remain mostly too busy having fun around here to bother documenting the fun. But I'm taking a brief break during naptime to stop by and say hello.

First, let's look at the spinning progress. I finished up the third cop (spindle-full) of singles. And I had a question from a muggle non-spinning friend (Hi, Doug!) about what exacty I'm spinning with, so I think I need to do some basic 'splaining. Here's a picture of my three spindles full of yarn.



The spindles are made of wood, with brass rings around the circle at the top to help balance the weight in the best way so that it will spin longer. The idea is, the spindle acts as a top. You hang the newly-made yarn off it, then start it spinning so you can spin some more of it. Yes, Doug - super low-tech. So low-tech that methods like this have been used for tens of thousands of years.

Now, the spindles are standing in a gadget called a Lazy Kate. It's a tool that you use for plying. Most yarn is made up of several plies, or layers of single-spun yarn. It makes it stronger. The lazy kate holds the spindles for me, I run the three strings through the tension ring like so...



And then I use a fourth spindle to twist the three together, winding up the finished yarn onto the stick as I go.



Once the yarn is all spun, I unwind it off the spindle and onto this:



That's a niddy-noddy. I use it so I can make a big loop with the yarn - sort of like winding an extension cord around your arm. Only faster and neater. Once the yarn is skeined, you tie bits of yarn around it in several places to secure it so that it can be washed. Washing it does something called "setting the twist" which means that it kind of finishes the yarn, kind of like how washing and drying your hair when it's on curlers sets the curl.

And to clarify, spindles are different than spinning wheels - two paths to the same end. And yes, spinning wheels are still mostly made out of wood - there are some versions made out of PVC pipes, some made from old bike wheels, and various other materials, but the most popular styles are still made mostly from wood, with metal fittings and often ball bearings these days. Very old-school

As an aside to my other readers, Doug is a very cool guy. He lives in Hawaii, spends a lot of time sailing, has been to the north pole (wearing one of my handknit hats!), and a while back offered to make me some titanium dpns. Where's my knitting-needle love, Doug?

And a close-up of the finished yarn. I'm happy with how this batch turned out. I still have more than half of the fiber left to spin before I can knit up some socks with it.



In other news, we got the new living room furniture we'd been planning to buy, and now our living room looks completely different.







The couch, chairs and ottoman are from IKEA. The rug is a really nice one that we'd had rolled up in the basement since we moved here. I thought I'd never find a place to use it again, and kind of forgot that we even had it. But when I saw the furniture all set up, I thought it was worth bringing it out and taking a look-see. The colors match perfectly, and although the size is much smaller than I'd wanted, I think it just may work. In any case, I'm going to live with it for a while before I go spend another big chunk of change on a new rug.

I feel like such a grown-up with real matching furniture! All this just in time for a house guest who's arriving tomorrow. One of Joe's lovely cousins will be spending the night here tomorrow night, and I've also been running around scrubbing here and there trying to bring the house back up to a liveable standard. We don't want her running away screaming when she tries to use our bathrooms, and the dust bunnies have been getting a little too assertive lately. Having guests is such a great reason to to ahead and do the necessary cleaning!

Finally, we took our first trip of the year to the splash pad today.







It was a bit chilly, but we had a good time. I was going to fill up the girls' wading pool, but it was cloudy this morning and I didn't think there was enough sun to warm the water up in time for them to play this afternoon. Maybe Saturday will be warmer.

Next time, a knitting update. I have a finished object to report and some small progress in other areas as well.