Spinny

A couple weekends ago I decided to bite the bullet and buy myself a spindle. It seems like everyone who knits is doing it and --despite many childhood reminders that the choice of others to jump off a bridge should in no way impact my decision making process -- I wanted to be a good little lemming. So I took myself off to Legacy Studio in Cochrane. Laura's business is primarily mail order; I did not know this when I phoned her and asked her for her business hours and address, and she graciously allowed me to come by her home and paw her yarn and roving. I'm not sure if there were hints that perhaps she would rather have her weekend to herself, but if there were I blithely ignored them and came away with this:



That is unbelievably soft merino roving and a beautiful handmade spindle -- I think the wood is called red heart.

I then carded it 50/50 with the grey alpaca roving from the previous post and made this:



I plied it using some method of winding it around my hand and then plying from each end -- Navajo plying I believe it is called? And, i used this as my plying spindle:



I think that I did not do too badly considering it was my first try, but holy s____, was my shoulder sore afterward. I also tried spinning with the merino alone. Nobody wants to see that, and I would like to erase all memory of it. Laura was right, merino IS hard for beginners. Laura also has some beautiful yarns: Alberta shetland laceweight, Alberta alpace laceweight. I happen to be a proponent of buying local when possible; I love knowing where my food comes from, and I see no reason not to expand this to yarn! Of course, local isn't always possible -- it would be pretty limiting. But, I like to try and support local producers and cut down on shipping emissions when possible.

While Bica was pretty impressed by the alpaca, she thinks the merino is pretty good too...