Sunday, September 23, 2007

A Fibery Weekend

It's been a fun weekend. And I got a lot done.

First, a preview of something I didn't get done: some fabric for needle rolls I bought this week. I'll probably keep one for me and give the others away, or else sell them on Etsy. We'll see how they turn out.
(So they're not done, but look! You can see the top of the dining room table! That took some effort.)

The second least exciting thing: I did knit a little. No pictures.

The most exciting thing: I finished spinning the wool that came with my purple spindle. I felt that if I put it off it might get put off for forever. I wanted to strike while the iron was hot. Unfortunately, the pink fiber was different than the white fiber. The white fiber was smooth and all the fibers lined up neatly. It was easy to pull off a strip, pre-draft a little, then get to spinning. The pink was kind of nasty, I think. It was kind of kinky, and seemed a little tangled.

The white fiber didn't have any kinky out-croppings like this. And see how some of it's more squooshed together and some is more spread out? I could describe it like cotton candy that had been pressed together. It was impossible to pre-draft, I had to go along the length and fan it out first. I don't know much about fiber, so I don't know if this is crappy or if the white fiber was just really nice. At any rate, it's done. There are some slubby bits, but I couldn't get them to straighten out.
From left to right: 24g, 26g, and 28g. You can tell the right-most ball is the first one I did.

Now, I need to know what to do next. I know I need to ply it, and I understand how. But I need more details. In my wildest dreams, I would make this into one ball of yarn -- plain white, then white and pink, then plain white again. Is this possible? And if it is, how? Can I somehow join these balls together as I ply, or am I restricted by the shortest length? I tried to ask this in my last post about it, but I don't think I communicated very well. Does anyone understand? If I want one ball do I have to ply the three together?


And last but not least, but not fiber-related, I made some ice cream! It's Purple Plum Ice Cream from the best ice cream cookbook ever. The recipes are not only tasty, but crafted in such a way that you get creamy ice cream that survives a stint in the freezer. Every other ice cream I've ever made turned into an icy brick when I tried to save some for later.

I love watching the ice cream freeze. Here are pics from time = 0, 10, 15, and 20 minutes:

See how it grows? I love it!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Look into Navajo plying via google or something - there's lots of information on that. It'll allow you to turn a single ply into a three-ply, and use up your full single.

I've never tried it on a spindle, and my wheel results haven't been so great - but other, more talented spinners than I have had great success. :)

(Gibknits, whom I met at a spinning class, is a natural!)

Do share: what did you use to freeze your ice-cream? I've been thinking about getting into that... novice foodie that I am. ;)

MsLindz said...

There's a lot of good information on this website: I Spindle.com. It shows how to Navajo ply so you can use all three to make one ball of yarn.

Unknown said...

I love my Cuisinart!! But I prefer the icy version, not the creamy. The girls prefer the creamy, so can you guess which I make? The icy kind!