Eye of the Tiger

I had intended to show you the super sparkly yarn I spun last week today, but it is still at my LYS being evaluated by the spinning teacher for the Summer of Socks and Lace contest, so alas, you'll have to wait to see it. (Trust me when I tell you it will be worth it -- I am ridiculously in love with that yarn.)

Instead, for this Sunday's post, here's a look at what I've been spinning on my Lendrum in the past week.

This is the Columbia wool that came from Crown Mountain Farms as May's shipment for this year's fiber club. The colors aren't registering exactly true here (it's more orange and brown in real life), but doesn't it remind you of an old crocheted afghan your grandparents used to have on their couch? Okay, maybe that's just my memory, but the color scheme does seem a little '70s to me, which is certainly a perfect fit for something called Eye of the Tiger.

This is the first time I've spun this particular breed, and I'm finding it an interesting spin. It's very springy and spongy, so I have a feeling this will be a yarn that will poof up in the finishing process. I'm spinning this on my Lendrum rather than my miniSpinner -- and you may wonder why when I tell you that the green yarn I have yet to show you was spun and plied in four days on it. Unfortunately, this particular batch of wool is very neppy and has a somewhat surprising amount of VM in it. I don't mind it so much, as I can easily pull out a piece of hay every now and then, but because of how often I'm stopping to do that, it really makes more sense to use the wheel I can start and stop easily. Plus, as amazing as the speed of the miniSpinner is, the Lendrum is my first love and it's so relaxing to sit and treadle and enjoy the process -- not to mention that the beauty of having two wheels is that I can work on two projects at a time.

I'm planning on finishing up the first bobbin tonight and will spin up a second bobbin probably this week. I'm hoping that this will be about a fingering weight when it's done so it will count toward the contest, but more than anything I'll be looking forward to being done with it so I can spin something in a different color (orange is not my favorite!). Although the June shipment from the fiber club is orange and yellow ...