Baby, it's Cold Outside!

I welcomed the cold this year with open, albeit well-bundled, arms. It's the only excuse I have to motivate myself to stay inside, not get frostbite, and make a dent in my Romeny fleece from Rhinebeck.



It was the first really nice fleece that I got my hands on at the mad rush of the fleece sale. It's a silver-gray color and super clean. It has the big, open crimp typical of romney, but it's so soft. I always thought of Romney as a long-stapled, coarse easy-to-spin beginner's wool, but some of the fleeces I saw and touched at the sale have convinced me otherwise.



I can't find the farm tag, but I remember it came from a farm in Maine that doesn't have a website.

I flicked each lock open and ran it through the drum carder, and carded the resulting batt three times.



It was a lot of work, but in the end, i had a basket full of this:





drool

I spun up some samples before I settled on a 3-ply. I'm getting about 13 wpi.



Which, incidentally , is a good weight to try for the Oatmeal Cardigan from the Winter Spin-Off:



Fleece to Sweater projects are real time commitments, but they are a perfect long winter project. I'm having so much fun spinning this, I'm really looking forward to the next day where it's too cold and snowy to deal with going outside (unless it means going outside will get me some cantonese noodle soup).

The Perfect Storm

It is windy and rainy, ruling out any outdoor activities.

It is the weekend, which means I don't have to be wasting my day in the office.

The Official Photographer is currently 4,000 miles away. He does not have the ability to protest any messes I might make.

Therefore, it is time to card and possibly dye.



Question: If the drum carder takes up the entire dining room table and no one is there to witness, does it still make a mess?





Answer: Yes, it does make a mess. But I blame myself. It also makes beautiful batts.



These are already up on the Etsy site, and I'll have more listed soon.

Loop Spin-in

On Saturday, Steph from Loop had her monthly spin-in at her studio.

Shansays brought some pretty dorset that she dyed:



SargentMajorette, LetsKnitTogether and MagicStix were all there:



Steph has a pretty sweet fiber mill set up.



Look! Dueling chakras!



CathyZ and JimBobSpins played a little chakra duet for us.

Stellina had some "crapalca" that was turned into beautiful roving. Here it is on the mill belt:



The glitter fairy swooped down last minute and sprinkled pixie dust on it.





The end results:



Definitely no longer crapalca!

The Gaga complex was right near a creek. Venus took me exploring around the area.









Then I went out for Shabu-shabu and sushi in Bensonhurst with Stellina and Shansays, which was an excellent way to get rid of the sugar withdrawl we were all having (an earlier stop at the Donut Plant was a delightful mistake).

I got very little actual spinning done, but I had so much fun it doesn't matter.