W is for Wool
Posted by Lanea on Thursday, December 4th, 2008
When I get right down to it, I do it for the love of wool. Crewel is my favorite form of embroidery. A desperate need for wool socks brought me to knitting. I love to sew wool, knit wool, spin wool, quilt wool, and wear wool. I love sheep. I love the way wool accepts dye. Wool wool wool.
All of which I need to chant to myself to ply up some of my handspun. I hate plying. Hate hate hate it. This, thankfully, is a jumbo bobbin full of two-ply fingering weight I spun up and then sat on for ages. I knuckled down and plied this and some other, deeper blue wool I'd spun even longer ago last weekend. And during that plying binge, I whined, stamped my feet, cursed, tried to bribe Scott into plying for me, and made a lot of empty threats involving my wheel, my wool, matches, and accellerants. This handspun wool yarn is all clean now, skeined and draped over my drying rack, waiting to turn into something lovely. And different, green, better wool singles are winding onto my bobbin inch by inch. All the while, I'm trying to pretend someone else will ply that once all of the roving is spun up.
Filed in ABC along,knitting,spinning | 5 responses so far
Carolon 05 Dec 2008 at 4:40 pm 1Plying is good. Plying is easy. Plying is what brings you to the final glorious result.
Yes, the activation energy to get started is a bit high, but think of the rewards!
Carol
melissaon 05 Dec 2008 at 6:23 pm 2But it’s not done until you ply… that’s when you get to see the final yarn, the real stuff! It’s kind of boring once you get the rhythm set, but hey.
gayleon 07 Dec 2008 at 7:59 am 3I try to reach a meditative state while plying, relaxing into the process.
When that fails, I slap a Jackie Chan movie into the DVD player and distract myself… 8)
mapgirlon 09 Dec 2008 at 4:41 pm 4Have wheel, will travel. Can always ply for you because I can’t spin anything else these days.
jinannon 24 Dec 2008 at 8:53 pm 5Mmmmmm! Gorgeous colors! Love the results!