Lazy Kate

No, I'm not talking about my daughter (sorry Katie) I'm talking about my new Lazy Katie that Anthony made for me today. We only had to purchase the pegs and dowel. Other than that we used scrap lumber that we had here.

I had 3 bobbins of mohair I had spun and wanted to ply them together. My Lazy Kate on my spinning wheel has a built in Lazy Kate but it only holds 2 bobbins. I was going to make something temporary but after showing Anthony on line what I needed he put it together for me.
The secret of this is the tension string. It works like the Scotch tension on my spinning wheel. It allows the plying head to pull the yarn as it plies.

I'm getting a lovely tweedy looking yarn. I'm hoping to have enough to knit a shrug for Katie. 100% mohair is a bit scratchy close to the skin but I'm thinking this over a shirt will be ok. I think the yarn is beautiful and my Lazy Kate is perfect!

New Spinning Wheel!!!!

Ok, I realize that its been a few months since I got the wheel but I got it! For those of you who saw my earlier post the dark wheel was borrowed (thanks Emily). Now I have my own. I got my new Sonata in May and then ordered the Jumbo Flyer about 2 weeks later. I absolutely love my wheel. I feel as though I have been working my way through various crafts until I found the one I'm supposed to be doing. Not that I don't love working with fabric while sewing and quilting and yarn in knitting and crocheting and my jewelry making, but spinning feels like it completes me. I was born about 150 years too late I think! Anyway, my new wheel is here and my next few posts will be of the yarn I have spun on it.

If you remember from my previous posts I was working on the pound of brown tones roving from Sheep Shed Studio. I finished that and ordered some white roving to experiment with dyeing. Here is my brown tones. It spun up like a brown tweed. I have now ordered some more hoping to get enough to knit a cardigan for this winter. Stay tuned for more yarn. I also have to tell you about my visit to Stony Woods Farms in Keller, TX where I met Mea Stone and her lovely goats, and dogs, and donkey and llama, ducks, chickens and.... oh yeah, her husband too.

My how time flies......

I can't believe its been so long since I've posted. Especially since the last post I joined a spinning guild called the North Texas Spinners who meet the 2nd Sunday in Denton, TX. They are a great bunch of women (and the husbands are nice too :)). I really had a good time. I took my fiber from my previous post and showed them what I had done so far. Linda had me sit down at her spinning wheel to try it out and I spun up the black and white fiber that Carol Lee from Sheep Shed Studio sent me as a sample along with the brown. Here is a picture of that after I spun it and plied 2 singles together. I had such a great time spinning with her wheel and really hated to leave it. I was talking to the women about their wheels and looking at the various types when I started talking to Emily. I said I was really interested in the Kromski wheels. She said she had a Sonata that she wasn't using and if I wanted to I could borrow it! WOW!!!! My mind went into overdrive. Not one to procrastinate :), 2 days later I went up to Emily's house for a lesson. The Sonata is one of the wheels I was most interested in as it folds for travel. It even comes with a padded travel bag. As I had said, I had spun the black and white roving on Linda's wheel and then Emily showed me how to ply it using both ends of a center pull ball. Its really lovely. I think I will just keep it at a reminder of what I first spun. Then I started spinning the brown and white roving on the Sonata. I did try out one of her other wheels (can't remember what its called right now) but I really loved spinning on the Sonata. I took it home and started spinning. I've nearly spun up the brown and its making a lovely tweed looking yarn. Here is a picture of the single plied from both ends of a center pull ball from the drop spindle in the previous post. I just love the wheel. I have 2 skeins of brown and white ready to set the twist and am just waiting on the rest before doing it. I'm going to order white roving next and spin some up for the next meeting in May because we are going to be dying with indigo at that meeting. It should be great. Hope you enjoy my spinning adventures. I'll keep you posted.