Spinning in My Happy Place

It has been a spinning-filled weekend here. Yesterday I was vending at Indie Knit and Spin, and as a way to both multitask and draw some people into the booth, I took my Lendrum with me so I could spin while I was sitting there. I decided it was the perfect opportunity to start a sweater spin, so I split up some of the HipStrings Buoy I bought at our Spinzilla spin-in and took it along. I'm spinning a traditional three-ply fingering weight for this project and the first skein (the darkest) will be spun from 6 oz. of fiber. I spun up the entirety of the first bobbin -- meaning 2 oz. of fiber -- in the time I was sitting there yesterday.

Ignore the hat underneath -- that was just to keep the bobbin from rolling

This colorway is called Mussels, and while it's a bit hard to see it in the photo, it's a beautiful blend of purple, blue, black, and brown. The singles have a wonderfully tweedy look to them, and the spinning experience itself is delightful. This particular fiber blend -- BFL, Shetland, and Manx Loaghtan -- has a really interesting feel to it. There's the silkiness of the BFL but a real toothiness from the Shetland and the Manx. Of course, like all HipStrings fiber, it is perfectly prepped and extremely easy to draft, and I'm definitely in my comfort zone with these singles, as they're really my default weight. The spinning is going quickly, too. I started on the second bobbin before the show was over and have just about an arm's length of fiber still to spin before it's finished as well.

In addition to that great start, I finished up another skein that was in progress. I finally finished up the Targhee singles I had been spinning for about two weeks on Friday night, and I plied them up last night and this morning. Here's the skein before it got a good soak:

I'll share some final pictures when it's dry, but I'm very pleased with it even fresh off the wheel.

Meanwhile, though I have been good about getting some fiber out of the stash, I've also had some new fiber come into it this past week.

This is the October shipment of the Southern Cross Fibre club, a colorway called Dot. I got the classic club, which this month was on Bond -- one of my favorites. I braided up the fiber to see how the colors will mix together and I really like them. This reminds me a lot of some of the colors the leaves are changing this time of year, so it feels appropriate for an October shipment. I'm not sure that I'll be spinning this up right away (I'm tempted to, but I think I should focus on my sweater spin for now), but I've certainly been giving it some good squeezes.