I have just had the most fiber-ific birthday. It started off strong when I arrived home last Tuesday night to a huge box in the living room. Now, I knew what was in the box, but thought I might wait until the weekend and my real birthday to open it. Then Brian suggested we check to see if everything was there. Once we opened the box, we just had to take it out and assemble it, oil it, and next thing you know, I had a new spinning wheel!

Its a Schacht Matchless. This is the same wheel I've been using in class, which is good because I have a basic understanding of how it works. I chose this one because I'd tried and liked it, and because its so versatile - there are various whorls for different speeds. well, I only use one or two speeds so far, but someday, the rest!

The sad-looking shoebox in the photo is a makeshift lazy kate. Somehow the fine people at Schacht forgot to put a lazy kate in the box, so I temporarily usurped this one from my little cat, who likes to sleep in shoeboxes. Schacht labels all their wheels based on the day they were made - this is the 13th one made on 12/16/09. The inauspicious 13 must be the reason behind the missing lazy kate..

But, not only did I get a spinning wheel, but also a whole pound of merino spinning fiber, and carders! I am so set to be a spinner.

Of course I've been spinning up a storm since getting the wheel. For the first yarn on the wheel, I spun some corriedale wool, because I had just worked with that on the spindle. It looks strikingly similar to the last handspun photo I posted, but I swear it is different yarn.. This one is 186 yards of about worsted weight, made from 4 ounces of roving.

Here's one spinning project, from fiber to yarn. This is only my second project on the new wheel, so I am by no means an expert. Anything in my process seems wrong, do let me know in the comments..

I started with a braid of combed top from JulieSpins. Its 5.4 ounces of Falkland, in the colorway "Cornucopia." (this is her photo)

It turns out that braids are not braids at all. They are one length of roving, crocheted into a chain! I unraveled the chain and thought about how to spin this. There was an area of yellow on one end, and an area of darker colors on the other, with some reds in between. In the finished yarn, I wanted the colors to be distributed throughout the yarn, so it wouldn't pool when knit up.

I decided to do a 2-ply yarn and split the top lengthwise, into about equal amounts. Then I pulled off even skinnier lengths and pre-drafted them, creating little balls of fluffy fiber like these. I kept the balls of fiber from each of the original two halves separate, creating two equal piles, one per bobbin.

Spinning begins! I enjoyed watching the colors change and create stripes on the bobbin. and falkland wool was terrific to work with.. it is smooth and elastic. I spun it as thin as I comfortably could.. need to work on even skinnier spinning!

Spin, spin, spin. I decided to try scotch tension because I've only used double drive up until now.

Below is the plying in progress. The yarn looks fuzzy in this image, I think its because of the direct sunlight. In real life its a smooth yarn. Plying took a surprising long time.. well I don't really know how long it typical; this took me about 3 hours.

I plied until one bobbin ran out. Then I made a center-pull ball from the remaining single on the other bobbin, and asked Brian to be a "lazy husband" (like a lazy kate, get it?) and monitor the last of the yarn for tangles while I spun a two-ply from both ends of the ball.

The finished yarn: 452 yards of about dk-weight, maybe worsted. so many yards! What to knit with this, hmmm.. maybe legwarmers?

This just in: When the two bobbins ended up at uneven weights after spinning, even though I'd divided the fiber equally beforehand, I figured I must have spun extra fiber on the first bobbin. Then, a week later, Brian found a ball of fiber under the bed. It turns out that Gus (our little fiber-loving cat) had taken it to his hiding spot! Got to keep an eye on that one..

It had to happen sometime. Five years after I started knitting socks, the first ones were starting to wear thin. Two pairs of socks had developed holes, and one pair was starting to fray at the cuff. I noticed the first hole months ago.. and folded the socks into the back of the drawer to be repaired "later." But I was running low on socks. I have about 10 pairs of hand knit socks and wear them regularly in the winter. And right now, three pairs were out of commission. If I could take a couple hours to fix them, I decided it would be worth it.

These are, in order, my first, second and third pairs of knit socks ever, circa 2004-2005, pre-blog. As you can see, I was in quite a green phase. The two solid pairs are Koigu, and the striped ones are Jawoll.

I learned a couple things in this endeavor. Namely, the advantages of avoiding darning.

Sock Darning Prevention:
1. Knit socks in sock yarn that has nylon in it. for real. there's a reason its called sock yarn. Koigu is merino - very soft, but not the strongest. However, when you count that these socks have been going for 5 years, that's not too shabby.

2. Keep those extra yards of sock yarn. Then you can fix the socks in the same colors quite invisibly, unlike my very noticeable repairs.

3. Watch socks for weak areas. Its way easier to repair something that is not yet a huge gaping hole.

Read on for a step-by-step of darning..

once upon a winter 2007, or thereabouts, I set out to knit eunny jang's anemoi mittens. some knitter gauge error occurred, and one mitten turned out smaller than the other. I decided a solution might be to felt the larger mitten and shrink it down a bit to match the other one.

as you might suspect, it was an ill-fated plan. the mitten didn't shrink, but the colors bled and now the white areas looked vaguely tea-stained. only on that one mitten. fail. I called it a day tossed them into the box of winter accessories.

cut to the present. my current mittens are out of commission due to a growing hole in the thumb. I grabbed the anemoi's, and they finally see some time outside.

I was pleasantly surprised to find they are super warm. I must be the last one on the boat of fair-isle hand wear fans. for anyone out there who hasn't got the memo: fair isle mittens = the ultimate in winter hand comfort. (also, handspun = awesome)

turns out the difference in sizes doesn't bother me. alas, they were still different colors.

nothing a little dye can't fix.

hello, navyblack mittens.