Taking Care of Business

Last weekend, my spinning plans were foiled, so this weekend I was determined to make up for that. I got back to my Friday evening spinning at last and finished up my BFL singles. After letting them rest overnight, yesterday I wound the singles off using my ball winder and then plied them from both ends of the resulting cake. I skeined the finished yarn, washed it, and hung it to dry, and this morning I had this:

Fibernymph Dye Works oatmeal BFL in Winter Deep

And here is a closeup:

The yarn did poof up a bit in the finishing, so it looks to be about sportweight, which makes sense with the estimated yardage I got of 291 (also taking into account that I typically get lower yardages with BFL in general). I think I may have put a tad too much plying twist into this yarn -- if you look closely at the left of the closeup, you can see some strands kinking up a bit -- so I might run it back through the wheel to remove some of that excess.

I so enjoyed the return to spinning that I started another project today, with some fiber that I bought about a year ago and foolishly put in a felted wool bag. I think you can guess where this is headed: It appears some moths got into that bag and nibbled on the fiber a bit. Fortunately, this isn't as big a problem for fiber as it is for yarn because it's all loose anyway, so I'm removing the nibbled areas as I find them.

This is the fiber in question, a 40% Merino/40% Shetland/20% nylon blend from HipStrings in Sound of Music-inspired blend called Silver-White Winters.

If you look closely, you might see a hint of sparkle in there, which is the silver in the name of the blend. Though the prep is combed top, I'm spinning it long draw, which works well with the shorter staple length of the component wools and any potential artificially shorter fiber.

As with my most recent spin, I'll be plying this back on itself. Long draw is a lot faster than the short forward draw I usually do, so I'm hopeful I can get this one spun and plied soon. This particular batch of fiber is on my 20 in 2020 list as well, so I'm eager to cross it off!