So, what did you do on new year’s day?  I went to work and counted sweaters and now I’m home watching football.  My team is playing in the Rose Bowl, so I got home in time for the second quarter.  Instead of typing in my blog I should be knitting, but my arms are tired from dancing with sweaters today.  And, I know better than spin while watching football.

Two years ago I learned to not spin while watching a good football game.  The national championship game (which we won two years ago and lost last year), is not the time to attend to yarn tension.  It’s also a problem when you forget which way you’re plying and go the wrong way.  "Huh?" you may say.  Here’s a tiny plying lesson.

In spinning it makes no difference which direction you spin the fiber.  The fiber simply doesn’t care (wool, silk, cotton, alpaca, hemp or anything else).  But throughout the history of spinning, much of it has been done co-operatively.  That means that I’ll spin on a spindle today and put it into the box of spindles at the end of the day; tomorrow you’ll pick up a spindle and so will I, but not necessarily the same one we used previously.  In order to continue making yarn, by convention, we all spin clockwise.  Looking down at the spindle, or from the orifice side of the wheel, the wheel or spindle will turn clockwise.

If I spun clockwise and you spin counter-clockwise, you would unspin my work, and I would unspin yours.

Plying is done in the opposite direction–slightly untwisting the yarn.  Which means that, when done correctly yarn is plied counter-clockwise.  Unless there’s an excellent, exciting football game on.  Then you ply clockwise and make twine for yarn (it ends up very overtwisted).  And, I’m so wrapped up in the game, I don’t even notice until 100-150 yarns of plying is completed.  It is almost impossible to unply yarn.  It takes two people and much patience.  I think I tossed the project.

So, no spinning during a football game.  Perhaps blogging is better anyway.

Since we won the game, be assured that when football is on, I’ll be blogging (not that I’m superstitious or anything

Fight On!

I spent NYE building this blog, backing up my email off-site, and trying to not think about the three projects sitting next to me.  Since I was successful building this blog, I guess I can get back to my fibery pursuits.  What’s on deck?

A lovely cabled sweater based on–Lucy Neatby’s Cables After Whisky–in my favorite commercial yarn, Tahkai’s Donegal Tweed color #843 (bright blue).  For the record, I already have sweaters in a green that’s discontinued, red 832, grey 835 and have made sweaters for T1 and T2 in stripes of 862 and 844 (blues).

The Chinese Red Vest from Folk Vests in Country 8-ply.  It took me three weeks to decide on the right red for this project and I’ve got 90% of it completed.  I just need to finish it!

Mittens for my DH from Knitter’s Handy Book of Patterns (see sidebar for link) in Brigg’s and Little’s Tuffy. It’s a very nice wool and nylon yarn with pronounced plies.  I took the cream yarn and dyed it over four days (four different dye baths) to get the colors I wanted.  It’s my favorite green (Evergreen by Country Classics) overdyed with various blues and greens to get a nice variegation.

If I can get the new digital camera to speak to my old computer, I’ll put some pictures up tonight.