No Pics this Time!

There won't be any pics this morning. I've been busy but just havn't taken time to snap the progress pics that I post. I finished the washcloth-learning-to-knit escapade and will post pics of the first on with errors and the second one w/o errors. That said, I will now find errors in the second one. Oh well, such is life. ;) Now I'm totally obsessed with making a pair of socks. Did I tell you I really don't like to knit? I bought a couple of skeins of this self patterning yarn that my MIL showed me. It knitted up so awesome I thought I'd have to try it out, and I'm determined to make some socks....so we'll see. I'd love to do this on circular needles, but the instructions show double pointed needles.....and 4 no less!...and I'm too new to knitting to not follow the directions. lol
I think I posted that last Tuesday I joined a spinning guild and brought home a wheel that a friend loaned me. Well, said wheel and I have become great buddies and really hate to be parted! So much so that by Thursday evening I was down to my last foot of spinnable roving. That shouldn't be a problem with all the fiber I have hiding out at my place, but the hand cards that were suppose to arrive at work on Monday still had not arrived. A phone call to the vendor on Thursday fixed the problem and the whole order (for the store) was overnighted and arrived on Friday. So......Friday night I finished up the roving I had and started plying. OMG!!! What a dream! To be able to ply a full bobbins worth of yarn in 45 minutes without any aching muscles!!!! Is it really possible?!! I don't think I'll be able to continue without a wheel. I think I will need to really save up fast to get my own because I just will NOT want to part with this one and go back to the OLD way of plying again. lol
It was Sunday before I really got to play with the carders. Having used dog slickers in the recent past, I basically knew what I was doing but had to test them out and was still worried I was doing it wrong. I am very pleased with how they are working and carded up all of the wool that I had dyed with blue food coloring awhile back. That allowed me to start spinning it up Sunday too. I'm a bit concerned that I may be overspinning it, but I seem to recall that after washing it I can wack it on the counter to get the halo to come up on the yarn. I really really hope so. So far it's spinning up looking like faded denim jeans only a little brighter. The fiber itself is super soft, so if the yarn doesn't come out that way, it will be because of my spinning.
Last night I started carding up the last baggie of dyed mohair. This one is shades of green and really not my favorite shades of green. I recall looking at it thinking that it was just an experiment and that I didn't have to do anything with it really. As I'm carding it up last night the fibers are cleaning up, the greens are blending, the silvers are coming out.....the shine...this stuff is as soft as silk and looks like it too! Hmmm.....I just may have to keep it to myself!
Ok, so while I'm enjoying the hand carders, and they are working fab, I still have way way way too much fiber to hand card. If my goal was to sit on the couch and card for the next year then I'd be fine. However, I'm not a patient personality when it comes to my crafts and I just cannot envision hand carding all of this stuff. I'm cheap too, so I don't expect I'll be paying anyone anytime soon to card it for me. The only recourse is to buy a drum carder. I could borrow one from the guild, but that is after 4 months of active membership and depending on someone else NOT having checked it out. Hopefully the bonus fairy will take pity on me and land me with some good $$ next month because I don't think I can wait another 4 months! I'm spinning this stuff up faster than I can card it and the wheel is feeling a bit lonely.
So tonight I need to get the twist set on the finished skein, take pics and holy heck! vac the rec room floor! I'm going to try to get the rest of the green carded tonight too. Hopefully I'll have pics and progress reports tomorrow.