Iced In.

We've gotten some very uncharacteristic frigid weather with lots of ice and some snow. I've been pretty much house bound. My truck even with chains is not up to the steep hills covered with ice. I've gotten some cleaning done but more importantly, spinning.
I picked up some merino/silk blend last Tuesday and spun up about 4 ounces.












I'm adding it to all the other merino/silk stash I've spun. Although I spun this a little thicker, it differs alot in that there is more twist and it appears to be a better yarn. I remember how much I loved the skeins of merino/silk as I spun them and now I have come to like them less. I guess the best strategy is to use my handspun right away before I gain more experience and see its flaws.













I did use quite a bit of yarn spun last spring for the alpaca hat. I still like the yarn and the hat very much but I can see how the yarn I'm spinning presently would be a stronger, longer lasting material.
I worked on the ear flaps for the hat. I attatched one and feeling that it wasn't quite right began to contemplate nixing them altogether. I woke up my friend Guy at 1 am to get his opinion. He has a wonderful eye and immediately knows what is needed or what is wrong. He said it was beautiful (a compliment from the very critical Guy) and that it did need earflaps but I needed to make them 2x as big. After sleeping on it, I do believe that he is spot on. So a few more days while I work this out. I really do tend to approach knitting without a pattern in a very timid manner. It takes me forever to get my courage up to begin and along the way I have to stop and let things sit without actually figuring anything else. All of which is absolutely unnecessary. It's just fear of screwing up.
In the mean time, I've been fooling around, trying this, trying that. I spun alot of cotton, tried to navajo ply it and found it didn't work at all. The bumps were too obvious. I'm not sure if it was my plying or just that thinly spun cotton doesn't work well when navajo plied.
Spun some camel down. It made a very bumpy yarn...not what I was trying to do. Let's hope that Judith MacKenzie McCuin's class helps answer some of my questions.
I played around a bit with merino and some tussah top. Lots of fun!
I also pulled out the bulky attatchment and did this. I'm not sure where I'm headed with this. Just trying things out mostly.

The idea is to ply it. I really want to shred stuff rather than cut strips. It just seems labor intensive to do it. There is a rugmaking cutting tool that might work. I think a commercial paper shredder might work too but they are expensive.

MY first weaving class is tomorrow!