My Old Enemy

I spent the weekend spinning away, mentally adding up with I had, doing the math and hoping -most of the time, against hope, that I would come up with 1400g of spun and plied fibre.  The whole last week my real life kept interfering with my wished for life, and not nearly enough time was spent at the wheel. (Despite serious and committed attempts and arrangements, somehow my real life still isn’t knitting and spinning.  I don’t know what’s up with that, but I’m still working on it.)  I spun and spun, and come yesterday morning I had two things. A huge row of singles to be plied, and a sore arm. (That’s unrelated.  I’m trying to learn to throw a ball with some sort of accuracy for Tuesday night’s stitch ‘n pitch.  As it stands so far I have about a 50% accuracy rate.  Half of the balls land squarely and neatly at the hands of the catcher, and the other  50% are apparently what baseball people call "a wild pitch".  Not good.) 

So there I am, yesterday morning with a big pile of plying to do, and as I lined them all up for a picture, I was thinking that if I really hustled and plied fast and dedicated myself, then I could weigh it all and if it wasn’t enough I could spin more and maybe still make my goal… and then I realized that I was done. Totally done.  I did my best, and either I had my goal or I didn’t – but that I wasn’t going to go busting a move that wasn’t part of the plan. 

I decided right then that I would ply it and then leave it all to weigh today.

Plied up yesterday was a gorgeous pinky goldy wool that I’ve lost the tags for,

but is prettier than I can say.

I managed to preserve the colour structure in the roving enough to get one skein that moves from gold to pink across the whole length.   (That was mostly luck.)

This one was a good move on my part.  I’m a  member of Fondle This fibre club, and this months shipment was this beautiful red fibre. 

Each month she ships out some fibre, the spinning directions and a pattern that goes with, and this month the directions were to spin it to a bulky two-ply for a hat, and what better timing could there have been.  It went fast, and is soft and lovely.

Also from the spinning club (but a few months ago) was this a BFL/silk roving that spun itself one evening.

The resulting yarn is heavy, drapey, warm and reminds me of the blueberry patch the colourway was named for.

The pretty tweedy singles from last post spun up into a very pretty yarn indeed.

Exactly what I was hoping for, that one. 

The last effort to pass the wheel was more of the Gold Dust Woman batts that I love so much. 

This yarn is destined for sparkly mittens – a little ray of sunshine in the dead of winter.

When all was said and done last night, I piled the yarn up, called it quits and went to dinner.  Resigned to know my fate this morning.  Up and fortified with coffee today, I fetched up my scale and gave myself a little talking to.  To my way of thinking and performing mathematics,  I hadn’t made my goal.  No way.   I’d be about 100g short I figured, but I was ready to let go.  1300g of fibre over the course of the Tour de Fleece was pretty much made of win (I told myself) and the fact that I liked and was proud of all of it? That was worth more than meeting my goal.  That was an accomplishment.  Besides, the goal was to stashbust, and I did. That’s a lot of fibre to have leaving this den, and I’m not going to beat myself up. 

I started skeining and weighing.

Red/orange Spinners Hill roving 361g.
BMFA merino/yak: 295g.
Seldom Scene Farm alpaca/silk/angora : 114g
BMFA BFL: 206g
Dyeing for Colour bamboo rayon/merino: 115g
Three Bags full Wool/silk/silk noil : 111g
Fondle This! Club Falklands wool: 130g
Fondle This! Club Merino/silk: 100g
Pink/yellow prettiness (tag gone): 105g
Gold Dust Woman batts from the Enchanted Knoll: 107g

I added that up.  I added it up again. I added it up a third time, because dudes! Math and I have an old rivalry- but anyway I add that up (and I even tried in another order…) that is a stunning amount.

1644 grams spun.

 I went over! I spun too much! I was so worried about not getting it done (and  my craptastic math skills) so worried that I would arse it up, that I actually managed to demoralize myself while simultaneously overachieving.  (Story of my life, actually.)
1644g in 23 days. 

I didn’t think I had it in me.

PS.  If you’re coming to the Stich ‘n Pitch tomorrow in Toronto, I’ll be there early, when gates open (5:30) to do things I’m actually good at (signing my name in books, talking to knitters) before I do something I’m bad at (throwing a ball.) If you’re coming down I’d love to meet you.

PPS. I threw a ball for a while at Rachel H today.  Most landed in her glove.  Hope dawns.