Pales and Brights

So, spinning. I'm still working on the naturally colored Shetland/silk, though it has moved along a little faster in the past few days. Last night I finished up the second bobbin:

and started the third (and final):

Yesterday was Indie Knit & Spin, a smallish local fiber festival. This year, classes were offered, and I signed up for one in support spindling (mainly because I wanted to be able to use the beautiful Spanish Peacock Russian spindle I bought at MDSW last year). The other person who signed up for the class never showed, so I essentially got a private lesson from Jill of Hipstrings. I wouldn't say I've completely mastered the technique -- I've still got a lot of practice to do -- but I managed to actually get fiber on my spindle!

I learned a lot more about the technique and how to spin short-stapled fibers. I even managed to spin some cotton (though I have no evidence of it because I neglected to take a photo after I'd spun it and I had to pull what I'd spun off the spindle when I was done because it was one of Jill's that I'd borrowed for the lesson). What you see on my Russian above is a luscious blend of camel, merino, and silk. There's also some bison, cotton, and silk hankies in the fiber sampler.

I'm sure you're wondering what else I picked up, so without any further ado, I give you my haul.

From Fibernymph Dye Works, self-striping sock yarn in Electric Avenue on her Bounce base (80% superwash merino/20% nylon):

and an Inversibles set in turquoise and brown, also on Bounce (these will self-stripe as well; one sock will have wider turquoise stripes and thinner brown stripes and the other sock will have wider brown stripes and thinner turquoise stripes):

From SpaceCadet Creations, I picked up a skein of Aurora (70% superwash merino, 20% cashmere, 10% nylon) in Tickled for an upcoming design:

Note: It's not nearly this neon in person.

 And finally I got this cute bucket bag, suitable for knitting or spinning projects, from Star Knits:

Look, it even has pockets inside!

All in all, I think I did pretty well!