Saturday, August 19, 2006

Alas, I'm late again!

Story of my life. Get over it, I did! heheheh.

Ok I'm late posting from midweek for a good reason. I had a fiber accident on Wednesday morning and it did not get fixed totally (enough for "after" pictures) until last night.

Here's what happened. Last weekend I started spinning up the "Not So Solid Purple" fiber and it went beautifully! I was tickeled pink (or lavendar if you will) with how it was coming out and really working hard at spinning a more even single. Well....I've had problems sleeping this week, so I've spent some late nights spinning and finished plying this pretty stuff up early, early, early Wednesday morning. I had a busy day planned; what with picking up 30 more cinder blocks for the garden and working in said garden area before running various errands and then making dinner...cleaning house....ect....... WELL! That being said you can understand why I would want to get the skein of yarn washed so it could be blocking and drying all day, right? The washing went wonderful. It all went downhill as I was placing the skein back on the skein winder to dry.

This is what I ended up with. 304 yards of tangled mess! As I was placing the skein on the winder, the skein of yarn popped off one of the sides and tangled back on itself. I know, I know....it's my own fault. If I had tied it in more than 4 spots then it wouldn't have tangled. In my own defense I just have to say that this is the first time it's happened to me and I've never tied it off in more than four spots before. Of course......this is one of the largest skeins I've spun up so now the lesson is learned. I think I should get some slack considering when it happend I did not utter one swear word! I was good. (I really think it was shock.) I did start untangling it immediately and then realized that it was going to take a chunk of time, so I set it aside and moved on with the day.

So the garden blocks were purchased, picked up and offloaded. (Oy! My back!) 21 were placed in their approximate places and the area around them was prepped. I'm so excited that the gardens starting to take shape! By the time I got that done it was time to run off to do errands so I could be back in time to cook din din. I'm hoping that tomorrow I'll be able to get them set and some dirt in them. I'm itching to get that back pathway finished and have to get that one bed done before I lay the weed shield in the pathway and spread out the shavings.

Wednesday night....or early Thursday morning ...whatever...)I managed to get the tangled mess balled up and then reskeined, and after work on Thursday I removed it from the skein winder (gasp) and re-rinsed it, then sucessfully replaced it on the skein winder. By Friday night it was ready to come off. Friday night I decided to weigh up and measure out some of my finished skeins and attach info tags on them. I realized that I'll never make anything out of this stuff if I don't know how much of it I have. (duh!)

Here is the ready to use....304 yard (approx), 8oz. skein of Border Leicester yarn (2 ply). It's really rather pretty and I'm almost sorry I told Mom she could have it. lol. No worries. Tonight I'm trying to dye more fiber....yep you guessed it. Solid purple 2.0. From the looks of things so far, I'll get a skein just like this one! lol Different wool this time too. So beats me why the dye is splitting. Oh, did I mention that I heard Solid Purple is the HARDEST to dye. LMAO. Figures. I bought some Moss Green Wiltons to try out and will hopefully get some dyed up for me tomorrow. Maybe it will actually come out green? We'll see and I'm not holding my breath.

3 comments:

Cindy said...

I understand the tangled mess. I didn't have 304 yards, but I think it multiplies when it tangles. For every 1 yard you untangle, 2 more tangle. I'm not sure about my math, but it sure feels that way. It turned out so pretty. Lovely spinning and I thought the dye turned out great. BTW, I ordered Deb Menz's video on fiber prep after your review. I'll let you know when I get it. Take care!

Sydney Harper said...

Beautiful skein! Hey, I tie my skeins in four places and I still had one that tangled the other day. I think the skeins do it because they get bored. :)

Anonymous said...

I see what you mean about the purple! But so pretty!!