Rocking out

I mentioned last week, I think, that it was my lovely housemate Mo's birthday. As a special treat, her parents delivered a rocking chair she's had since she was 15. It's a bit different from the typical rocking chair I would think of, being much lower with no arm rests. I've always loved rocking chairs, having often imagined myself spending a pleasant evening knitting while rocking back and forth. This is not exactly the type I envisaged in my knitting daydreams, but it is the perfect chair to spend an evening spinning.

Have you ever seen anything more delightful? You may remember from this post that, when teaching someone how to spin, I kind of realized what I should have been doing with my hands when spinning in order to draft as I spin, as opposed to completely pre-drafting the fiber before simply feeding it into the wheel while I turned the treadle. I used some grey roving I'd picked up from Pippa Blue and am delighted to report that yes, I did indeed manage to draft as I spun, at least to some degree. To do this I had to concentrate quite closely to what I was doing with my hands, which predictably led to the treadling (i.e. making the wheel turn by moving the foot paddle) being somewhat sporadic, so the grey yarn is still quite lumpy and bumpy. But I believe I am improving, so am much pleased! 

I then spun the last of the Blue Faced Leicester which I bought from This Is Knit in Dublin. With my new found skills, I raced through this, the last of my spinning fibre. I can't wait to get some more. At the end I spun on the last of the grey fibre I had lying around the floor.

I then plied them together to make a kind of candy strip yarn to match this yarn I spun/plied here.

As I'd spun them so thick (despite my best efforts) I didn't end up with a huge amount of length. I randomly treble crocheted these lengths together with some kind of mini scarf in mind. It's still a bit short to be anything useful, so I'll probably join my next homespun adventure onto the end as and when it happens.

The shopping bag continues. The stretched out corner is really annoying me now that the rest of it is coming out so well. I don't know what happened, it must have got snagged on something in my bag and got stretched when I pulled it out. Sigh. Hopefully I'll be able to sort it out when it comes to sewing the sides together.

Have a wonderful week everyone.