My new spindling book

DSCF2059-A-book-spindle-11-17-2007
Originally uploaded by MysticSpiral

Ok, maybe that's deceptive. It's not like I've written a book on spindle spinning. Instead, I've turned a small, otherwise useless book into a drop spindle. I found the book at the annual Planned Parenthood book sale held at our local fairgrounds. I had fun making it and am thinking about doing a tutorial, if there's any interest.

I've been doing a lot of spinning recently. Between that and the sweaters that I've unraveled, my yarn stash is getting out of control. It doesn't help that I haven't been doing any knitting or anything with the yarn. I'm currently taking my first uneasy steps toward using some of the incoming yarn.

A series of sock tutorials is being posted on Lime & Violet's Daily Chum. I'm working through the first tutorial using yarn reclaimed from a Gap sweater in a truly unfortunate color. There are 4 skeins total and I'll probably overdye the other 3 but I was so anxious to get started knitting my first pair of socks that I decided to jump right in with the eye-poking really should glow-in-the-dark yellowish greenish yarn exactly as it came off the hanger after washing and blocking.

The only down side to spending time over at the Daily Chum is that if I hadn't stopped by I would have been blissfully unaware of this.

Fold, spindle, mutilate

I've been dragging my feet on this post for a while. To be honest, I don't like the uncertainty of all of this and it's taking so long to figure it all out that I'm feeling very adrift.

The status of things so far... I've had 3 physical/occupational therapy appointments. She gave me 6 pages of exercises intended to help with carpal tunnel syndrome, cubital tunnel syndrome, de Quervain's tenosynovitis, and trigger finger. In subsequent visits, we've discussed modifications and variations of the exercises to relieve some of the discomfort and other problems that I've experienced doing the exercises as illustrated.

Last week, I met the orthopedic surgeon to whom I've been referred. Since appointments almost never start when scheduled, I brought my drop spindle to the appointment with me so that I could spin while I waited. I managed to spin for about 45 minutes in the waiting room before being escorted back to an exam room where I spun for another 20 minutes while I answered questions for the patient history and then waited for the doctor. (Met an interesting woman in her late 60s who told me with tear-filled eyes that she hadn't seen anyone spinning since visiting her grandmother as a child.)

When the doctor looked at my hands, I had the weirdest impression that he was disappointed. He reminded me so much of a young boy who opens the door to go outside after the first snow of the year only to find it disturbed by someone else's footprints. He performed a quick physical exam, gave me some instructions while he tapped on my wrists and elbows and then ordered a nerve conduction study and EMG.

The test is scheduled for next week and sounds like a laugh riot. I can't imagine why people aren't lined up around the block to have teflon coated wires poked into their muscle tissue so that electrical current can be zapped directly into the muscle to simulate nerve commands.

Between doctor's waiting rooms and my weekly depression support group, I'm getting quite a bit of spinning in. Enough that I felt justified in purchasing a "real" spindle instead of the CD drop spindles I'd mostly made do with until now. (I have a spindle that I made using a toy wheel and a dowel. It works quite nicely, but still feels somehow illegitimate.)

My new baby is an Ashford Turkish Spindle. What I love about this, and the reason that I just ***HAD*** to have it and managed to justify the purchase to myself and anyone else who would listen, is that Turkish spindles break apart leaving the spinner with a center pull ball from which to ply or knit. After spending more hours than I care to think about hand-winding 300 and some odd yards of handspun singles into a center pull ball using a make-shift nostepinde fashioned from disposable chopsticks from Sprout's favorite Chinese buffet, I realized that my hands/wrists are not equal to the task of regularly winding singles for plying. I know that I could just use my ball winder, but I have found that I lack the patience to wait that long to move forward with the next step of my spinning.

The next addition to my spinning arsenal... A Golding Aromatherapy Spindle... I've heard nothing but good things about Golding spindles from other spindlers and I can tell myself that this one has therapeutic benefits on top of the meditative benefits of the spinning itself.

On a completely unrelated note... to balance my whining about medical stuff... here are the results of an online quiz that I stumbled across thanks to Ravelry.

What Kind of Knitter Are You?

You appear to be a Knitting Apprentice. You've got the basics down pat and you might just be falling in love with this hobby. Big needles, funky yarns and simple shapes are the name of the game shudder, but it doesn't mean you don't experiment a bit, here and there. As an apprentice, you probably fall back on other people to get you through those rough spots, and if you don't know anyone who knits, you probably have a few books or online sources to tap.
http://marniemaclean.com
Take this quiz!

Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Galvani%27s_legs.gif

Knitting with Toothpicks

I just wanted to pop in and post a quick update before I crawled up to bed. After finishing my felted Easter egg, I decided that I needed to show off the results at the fiber shop today. Sundays at Fiberworks are usually a good time to visit and catch up with people. Today was no exception. Arlene spent most of the day teaching spinning to two lovely ladies from Cincinnati while a group of us sat around the table knitting, talking and snacking on pound cake, brownies, and sliced oranges.

I have been eagerly anticipating a knitting class with Maggie since the very first time that I saw her working on a set of beautiful beaded wrist warmers. These lovely accessories have a very Victorian feel and were inspired by similar items made during that period to hide stained or worn cuffs. One of the advantages of learning to make them, or so I keep telling myself, is that learning to work in the round on Double Pointed Needles (DPNs) is the first step to learning to knit socks... (Ok, you don't have to knit socks on DPNs. You can knit socks on circular needles...) I doubt very seriously that I will **EVER** attempt to knit socks. I'm intimidated by the whole concept of trying to follow a pattern that way. There are so many foreign terms involved in sock knitting... heal flap, gusset, kitchener stitch...

On the other hand, I'm having fun knitting these wrist warmers. I'm actually knitting something that requires me to purl. And I'm knitting on #2 knitting needles. They feel so small and fragile in my big clumsy hands. I think that I may actually attempt to make bronze needles to play with. The coolest thing about that idea is that I could actually have multiple sets, and make replacements as needed...

Well, the pillow calls...

My kingdom for a niddy noddy

It's hard to describe how rewarding it feels to have made my own yarn on my spinning wheel. The fiber is CVM (California Varigated Mutant) roving that I picked up at Wool Gathering. I had about 4 ounces to play with and absolutely loved spinning it up. I'm still getting the hang of adjusting the tension so that it winds onto the bobbin. And, speaking of the bobbins, I didn't do very well at getting the amounts on the two bobbins equal. I haven't had much luck with Andean Plying and the Handy Plying method from KnittySpin is not going so well for me yet either. Since there's not much left on the bobbin, I'm debating either plying it with thread and using it as an accent somehow or using it as an opportunity to learn how to handle singles. It's all about the learning experience.

And, speaking of learning experiences... I don't, yet, own a niddy noddy. This invaluable piece of spinning equipment enables you to wind your finished yarn off the bobbin and turn it into a skein. I have a very limited number of bobbins and/or drop spindles (although I'm making myself more of the drop spindles to play with so that won't be as much of a problem) so the products of my spinning efforts must go somewhere. Although the quality of the image above leaves much to be desired, the yarn is obviously in the form of a skein. Obviously, I've come up with a solution. In the spirit of sharing, I thought that I'd post my (temporary) solution here in hopes that it will help someone else... If you combine a CD drop spindle and my improvised solution to the niddy noddy problem, it is actually possible to begin spinning for almost no capital investment beyond the fiber itself.

Looking at the image above, you see a rectangle. This rectangle is intended to represent a hardcover book, although any rigid, rectangular object will work. (I just happen to always have a book at hand, and there was one there when I needed it so that I could unwind my yarn and free up my drop spindle for the next project.) The illustration should help, the rectangle is supposed to be translucent so that you can see how the yarn wraps around the back as well as the bold pink lines that show how it wraps on the front. The pointing fingers show the path of the yarn around the front of corner A, diagonally across the back to emerge and go around the front of corner B. The yarn then goes around the back of corner C and diagonally across the front of the book and around the back of corner D. This should bring you to where you started, in the middle of the short side of the book, to wrap around the front of corner A and repeat that path until you're out of yarn. It is a kind of elaborate figure-8 which allows you to wind the yarn around, and around, and around the book. Once you've finished, you can usually slide the yarn off one corner without too much difficulty.