I spin therefore I am

Having two fiber passions in ones life can be both a blessing and a curse. I have a hard time deciding which I want to do at any given time. I love spinning. I love knitting. I love them both with a passion. I tend to be a bit streaky with them and will do one to the complete exclusion of the other. For a while, I had declared home for spinning and everywhere else for knitting. That worked. Sort of. Then came the children. I could no longer really spin when the kids were awake, so I would have to wait until they were in bed. But then I found I could knit while they were out and about while I sat on the couch supervising their activity. Wow. Fibery activity with awake babies. Cool. The wheels continued to be neglected as I would get thoroughly involved in whatever knitting project I was working on. Well now that the woolee winder has arrived, wonderful tool that I would HIGHLY recommend to all spinners no matter what wheel you are using, I can now spin when the monkeys are around. This still left the decision of what to do when and where. I found that the Yarn Harlot has a really workable solution to this. Tuesday is spinning day. I instituted that last night.

I plied the llamney singles that I spun on the womack Sunday:



The fiber was a wonderful 70/30 blend of llama and romney wool. The finished skein is 100yds at @50 grams. The remainder of the 8oz of the original roving are still sitting on the lendrum bobbin and I'll wind them off into a skein tonight. I do think this skein is a might more consistent that the other one will be. I can now take 8oz of roving out of the spinning stash and add yarn to the yarn stash :) Now to reduce the yarn stash.



I also managed to spin about 1/2 a bobbin of wonderful roving that I got from Linden Lane Farms in their Rose Garden colorway. It does speak garden to me in a wonderful combination of light and dark rose colors mixed with two shades of green. It is coming out beautifully and on the womack with the WW, it is so consistently spun. I kicked back and spun until my eyes started to close. I love it. Only had to stop once when the length of roving ended and I had to fish another end out of the bag. This is spinning up very fine and will make excellent sock yarn. Its a 80/20 blend of romney and mohair.

While yesterday may have been spinning day at home, I still had a commute (from hell) and lunchtime to knit. I progressed pretty darn far on the booga bag and as of the end of lunch today, I'm ready to bind off. I'm debating between and i-cord bindoff or a standard one. Not sure yet, but will figure it out by 5 when it is time to leave :) Here's a picture as of it last night before spinning hour:



On the child front, the twins are ever close to walking. Ms. Kat can take quite a number of steps before giggling and falling over. Alex finally took a few steps while I was watching him so it really happened this time. Kat actually started walking when she wanted something without encouragement for the first time. I was also able to walk with her holding one hand while I carried her brother. Yee haw.

Yesterday picked up after lunch. Thanks to Nancy for her commiseration on yesterday's less that wonderful morning. I try to maintain my sense of humor, especially when there's little choice left but to laugh or cry. I much prefer to laugh. Its easier that way and my nose doesn't turn an embarrassing beet red then that I have to explain. Thanks also go to Bridget for the much needed chocolate! Lunch was when the day started to turn around. There's something about getting together with a great group of people, breaking bread and sharing, not to mention knitting after food. Thanks ladies.

To finally warm my heart last night, I was lying on the den floor at my parents' house last night watching the twins play with their grandfather. Alexander turned, crawled over to me and planted 4 juicy baby kisses on my face. Awwwwwww.