The Poof Never Gets Old

On Friday night, as per usual, I sat down at my wheel to spend some time spinning before bed. It's become my weekly ritual, mainly because by the time I get to Friday night, my brain is thoroughly friend and not fit for counting or following a pattern. This past Friday's spinning was even more mindless than usual because I had two bobbins of singles all ready to be plied, so I didn't even have to think about drafting. Thanks to my WooLee Winder, I was able to ply up both skeins before it was time to call it a night. I let the yarn rest overnight and then skeined and washed it Saturday morning. It turned out just as I was hoping -- all fluffy and springy.

The fiber was superwash Targhee from HipStrings that Rainbow had picked out at their Small Business Saturday sale last year (yes, it's been marinating in the stash), and she requested that I spin it up to make her some legwarmers, so I split the top down the middle vertically. I didn't do such a great job of it, which is why one of the skeins has some darker purple that the other one does not (I tore off some of the purple from one bunch of fiber and added it to the other to even out the weight). In the end, it seems I did a pretty good job because the skeins are extremely close in yardage. I ended up with approximately 320 yards of chain-plied fingering, which should be plenty for legwarmers. I was a bit worried that the yarn was on the thin side when I first skeined it up, but I was soon reminded by how much Targhee likes to poof up in the wash. Freshly plied, the yarn was a little limp and stringy, but a hot bath was all that it took to get the bounce back. I just love that.

Meanwhile, I've put some very new stash on the wheel in the form of a Tour de Fleece prize I won from Lisa at Fibernymph Dye Works. I had a choice of several fiber selections and chose this braid of Cheviot in her Beach Wedding colorway.

On this attempt with Cheviot, I'm really trying to get three-ply fingering weight, so I split the top down the middle and am again going to chain ply to some stripes. So far, it looks like a proper fingering from my ply-back test, but time will tell. I do love these very beachy colors, though, so I'm sure that I'll be happy with the yarn no matter what.