Ready, Set, Go!

…and as usual, I'm behind schedule knitting for the holidays. What else is new, right? I have to say, with my life's fits and spurts over these last few years, I can see why. I love this new job, though my day tires me out with the morning commute with the Boy Child in the morning-and later afternoons with picking up the Girl Child after work. But, my new direct supervisor is a handspinner and encourages me to take spinning breaks! Yeah, you read that right. She has basically given me a present just about every week since I started. Plus, I get her spinning supplies when she destashes. And they're usually antique! Ha!! Can't beat that! If you have to work a full time job, it's a very good trade off any day. But, I'm still kicking myself, as per usual…and frantically searching for quick projects to make for this Christmas season to combat the work schedule. I give thanks for Thanksgiving break to sort this stuff out.

Aaaargh! I HATE this! And, I LOVE this! What's wrong with me?

Well, I have plenty of yarn to choose from, that's for sure. I had more skeins than I anticipated from the last six months to wash. I was really surprised. Didn't feel I had produced much this year with the divorce and moving and what not (about to move again at the end of this week…stay tuned). Wasn't prepared to spend an entire work/school night washing yarn. But, with that batch, my handspun collection finally spilled over into a totally new yarn bin….Not sure that's either good or bad, lol.

Case in point, this is one that I had been spinning on my spindle.

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I thought I had spun all of this months ago. But I wound up finding more of the chocolatey stuff and had to get it spun too. You know how much I just adore spinning neutrals for unreasonably long and drawn out amounts of time (chokes on finger). I think I must subconsciously be hiding braids of my neutral fluff in different places as a coping mechanism, so that when I find it, I'm only spinning it in small doses. Some sort of undocumented form of handspinner's sleepwalking or something. I think it's the only way I can handle it. You buy that? I think it's as true a story as I ever heard.

Still, this stuff piles up over time.

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Aside from this, I have a huge skein of white handspun from my Roadbug. HUGE.

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And more gray and brown swirled fluff I was spindle spinning a while back. All on the neutral (hack/cough/hack) side.

And then, there was the colored yarns to wash like the handspun I made from the fluff Laurel gave me, the forestry-inspired one, and this orangey fluff I casserole-dyed with Deb over the summer that I was trying to figure out how to spin.

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For some reason, after spinning the forestry-inspired, casserole-dyed batch, I wanted to experiment with this orangey fluff and the blending board. The blending board is fun and I liked the mix (some merino silk). Plus, I think I could definitely see the influence of these colors in a drawing I had done around the same time I blended it (second from the top). See if you can tell the resemblance. Is it art imitates life or the other way around? I tried a sample (gasp) to see how well I liked it.

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Just to be sure though, I wanted to see if I would like the colors by themselves better.

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I guess you know by now which I chose! :)

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Wow! I love that color pop!!

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The colors are so warm and lush! This was chain-plied too. I used the Roadbug, but with a separate Lazy Kate. So, it's fluffier than the other yarns I've chain plied with the on-board Lazy Kate. It's definitely doable. But, I don't think the on-board Lazy Kate on the RB is the best for quick chain-plying. It's more like for if-it-gets-caught-a-couple-times-I-got-time-to-detangle-it chain-plying. The Lazy Kate is just too close to the wheel for you to do it quickly. You have to keep your knee between those strands and the wheel and flyer. Not easy to do when you're also doing double-duty keeping Zip, I mean your kitten, from swatting at your progress…Maybe if it swung out for chain-plying something. Nevertheless, once I saw the saturated sample, I needed this to hurry up and get done, yesterday.

I like! :) And, now…to remedy this whole no warm things for Christmas deal…

Dear Father Time,

It's me and you again. I issue you yet another challenge.

Ready, set, go!