Injured

Unfortunately, there will be even less progress on my projects to report than usual: I've managed to injure my shoulder, and I'm resting it from knitting and spinning for 2 weeks.

First off, I don't know how I injured my shoulder. But my spindling form couldn't have helped. I have been trying to avoid lifting my elbow above my shoulder and stick to "butterflying" the singles: winding them onto my thumb and forefinger by twisting my wrist back and forth. But oftentimes I am lazy. I think, "it's only a few inches," or "I should give the spindle another spin," and I just lift it up. There's a good chance that this is what is causing the pain and immobility in my shoulder. But if not, it could, so I really do need to work on my form.

So, despite wanting to finish my shawl, and having a lot of free time on my commute, I'm stuck longingly staring at pictures of homemade yarn. If you spin, I hope that my mistakes can help you to avoid them. And this update will be a bunch of small things that I haven't gotten around to reporting yet.

First, some purchases:

Rainbow masham wool braids from Edgewood Garden Studio

I was just too tempted not to buy these rainbow mini-braids from Edgewood Garden Studio. Each is two ounces, and they are perfect for playing around with different ways of doing color combinations. The wool is masham, which is an interesting cross-breed of teeswater and swaledale. The wool is not as soft as many, but it seems to have a lot of luster. Unfortunately, when the braids arrived, they were very compacted (probably from the dyeing process), and I am worried that they will be difficult to spin. They might just need a little predrafting, or they might need a lot of predrafting. Either way, it's not ideal.

My second purchase was a swift.

Peg swift

I have already tried it out, and it makes balling yarn soooooo much easier. No more tiring myself out moving my arms around the chair or over my head. Storing it is the only problem, since it is a bit bulky.

Yarn swift in action

Along with my purchases, I had been feeling like it had been too long since I had processed any fiber. With one spinning project and one knitting project, I wanted to card something. I can't do it on my commute (needs too much room, too messy, etc) but it is a nice project for evenings and weekends. A chance to get back into the feeling of raw wool.

Ryeland rolags

Before I hurt my shoulder I was making rolags out of the ryeland wool I bought at the Maryland Alpaca Festival. It cards wonderfully, and it has a nice, soft, grayish brown color. Some of the locks are more brown, some are more silver, but I am just mixing them all. I have heard that the wool is incredibly stretchy and springy, and so far that seems to be true. I don't know when I might have a chance to spin it, but I think I will use the wheel to make sock yarn.

One lock of the ryeland wool

This week I have been going a little bit crazy with no spinning or knitting. So I started to organize my fiber stash and realized that I have half a pound of white rambouillet roving. I also have a lot of other white wool, and I'm not particularly fond of the rambouillet, so I decided to try dyeing it.

Rambouillet roving, pre-dyeing

While I have dyed wool before, I always did locks. This time I decided to do the roving in different colors. I spread it out on a tray covered in plastic wrap, then got it very wet. Then I poured dye on top and poked it until it soaked it up - Navy blue, kelly green, and yellow. I then baked it in the oven for an hour. I'm still waiting for it to dry, so I don't know if it felted yet.

Rambouillet roving, dyed

I am really not liking the dyes that I got at the alpaca festival. They are really bright and ugly. Oh well, maybe it will look fine spun up.

Maybe.