Flyer Fancies

Here's my spinning from last night. It's one of the balls of drafted giant batt plus a little of the second one. See the odd hooks by the pink asterisk?


This is what comes of being a self-taught spinner. The offset placement of the hooks seemed really strange to me and it bugged me that the bobbin didn't fill up on the end. So I added a hook. I moved the "real" hook to a newly drilled hole at the very tip and put a small brass one in the original hole. A few days later, I happened on a spinning post (3/2/2008 by the green/yellow-filled bobbins) about how you can use ALL the hooks to fill the bobbin more compactly. Duh. I thought that the ones on the right for Z-twist (spinning singles) and the ones on the left for S (plying). Nope. Not at all. Now I'm spinning using all my hooks.

This cheviott giant batt is, no surprise, behaving differently than the few other fibers I've spun. If I'm not careful, drafting introduces neps/noils/tangles that make lumps in the yarn. Also, since I'm doing a modified short/worsted draw (which is what I know how to do, sorta), I was sliding my pinched fingers along the yarn as I let the twist in. Well I stopped that because it made more tangles. Currently I'm just letting go and letting the twist travel up to my drafting hand which pinches of the undrafted part of the roving. The results are much more like real yarn!

After worrying a little about actually meeting my goal, I made up a schedule/progress tracker on an index card. After some math, drawing, writing and smudging of gel ink LOL, here it is:


Each remaining day has a 4-lined rectangle with day/date/total-to-date, fraction prepped, fraction spun, and fraction finished. I need to complete 48/16ths of the giant batt to meet my goal! I'm including plying in finishing because it goes pretty fast compared to spinning. And my card didn't have room for 5 lines per day!

A little math reveals I have 3/16 complete (2/16 predrafting, 1/16 spinning) and, on average 2.5/16 per day to go. The daily goal is on pencil on the sticky flag so I can update it and move it as needed.

Oh, and yesterday I ordered two spinning books: A Fine Fleece (and dye and yarn) at KnitPick's book sale and Alden Amos Big Book of Handspinning at Interweave's Hurt Book Sale. Next I want to order a plying flyer and bobbins for my Babe wheel, but not today!