TdF23, D+9/S10 – Rest Day

As if. I said I’d spin every day, so every day it is.

While out in the rain this morning, I spotted something odd on one of the rose bushes I inherited from my mother:

Two roses on the same bush, one bright yellow, the other white.
Same rose bush, different-coloured roses!

I’m pretty sure it didn’t do this for my mother, or she’d have shown me. Hopefully it’s not a problem, like lack of feeding or something.

Today, I finished up the 3rd of my Poppy Fields rolags. It’s went rather smoother than the other two, mainly because I relented on using it to learn long-draw and am instead spinning it as it comes. The sari silk is in no way blended into the rolags, it’s just randomly distributed lumps, so I just stop spinning when I come to one and winkle the silk fibres apart as much as possible to lie parallel along the single. I don’t always succeed, but the single is more consistent now and the silk slubs aren’t as huge. The drafting is a kind of short backward draw, between slubs, and not spun too tightly.

I also did some plying, weighing and measuring the length of what I’ve spun so far:

  1. Donegal Tweed, 2 ply, approx 12wpi, 33.6m.
  2. Mystery wool top, 2 ply, approx 20wpi, 33.4m.
  3. Shetland moorit top, 2 ply, approx 20wpi, 54.5m.

I also tired of faffing about with crochet hooks and made myself a new orifice hook with 10ga brass jewellery wire. My hands hurt after making those spirals, lemmetellya. I need to invest in some sturdier jewellery pliers.

A brass orifice hook with a spiralled wire handle ending in a second hook for hanging conveniently on your spinning wheel. It is resting on a pencil for size reference (they are approximately the same length), and there is a plastic bag of Shetland 2-ply handspun in the background.
I suspect this gaudy object will be harder to lose.

And so to bed, with a final pic of my first 2 bobbins of Herdwick/bio-nylon singles, where they’ll rest for da or so until they’re plied:

Two bobbins of dark grey Herdwick/bio-nylon yarn on a lazy kate. On the base of the lazy kate are a pair of rimless reading glasses and another bobbin holding a green single from the Poppy Fields rolags.
Herdygurdy and the 3rd Poppy Fields rolag awaiting plying.

Allons-zzz….

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