Last week's spinning......

The county fair is over for another year - we had the best time spinning everyday and visiting with the public...…and chatting and chatting amongst ourselves.  It's amazing that we never run out of things to talk about after spinning together all day long. 

I was close to finishing up spinning some other fiber so didn't want to take that as I'd have to ply and didn't feel like plying the entire time.  This is the last of my hand-dyed roving in my stash, it's a merino/bamboo/nylon blend in a colorway I call bandana. I am ready to ply 2 huge bobbins I spun on my Hansen (electric) mini-spinner which was so easy to roll in and out each day in it's Zuca rolling tote. I have no clue what it will grow up to be, it may have to sit on the shelf and marinate for a while until the perfect project comes up. I wasn't sure what it would look like spun up, I really like it. 

Hansen mini-spinner

Just a quick post to answer a couple of questions.  First for Theresa - plying is a pleasure on the Hansen mini-spinner (electric spinner). It goes so quickly....which is great for me because I get so bored plying, it seems to go on forever too. I was having a little trouble at first getting the amount of twist right in my plying but I think I've got it now.  And Valerie - if you need someone to enable you to buy a mini-spinner I'll help! The speed of your drafting shouldn't make any difference - there's a speed control to get exactly the right speed for your spinning/fiber. Another nice thing is that when you start it up it gradually gets up to speed. I'm not even spinning at the halfway mark on the little dial.  I love this e-spinner but I still love my wheels and pedaling away on them so I won't let them gather too much dust.

On the weather front, we didn't ever get the snow at our elevation yesterday as predicted but overnight the winds, big winds, and rain came in - maybe winter has finally arrived. We're so behind in rain/snow totals which just leads to more fire danger in the summer so this is a good thing.

Love this Hansen spinner.........

I love my Hansen spinner!  I just plyed two big bobbins off my Majacraft onto the one on the electric spinner - this would have taken me 2-3 evenings to do - it was done in an hour - whoo hoo!!!! I love spinning but I hate plying. I am one happy camper if I don't think about the AVL challenge.....  :-)
I have over a pound of this stuff left to spin, it's lumpy bumpy and rough.......it doesn't feel good going through my hands, I'm not sure what I'll do with it. If it doesn't feel any better to me after washing/blocking I'll pass the rest of it on to someone who loves working with it. My big skein is sitting in a sink of water and wool wash as I type, will hang it by the fire to dry tonight.

new toy.....

Here it is - my new toy! It's my Hansen mini-spinner. I've been playing with it today, fine tuning my storage for it and tension, etc. Of course I can't do much spinning on it right now because I've got to finish up what I've been spinning.....don't want to have a change in the way my finished yarn looks by switching methods in mid-stream. But I do have some corriedale cross hand-dyed rovings I need to spin small samples of so I get to play with it this weekend.

This rolling cart is the perfect size for storing and toting my spinner around. It's a smaller version of several larger carts I now own for carting my spinning with wheel around (and other stuff). The Hansen mini-spinner fits inside this small cart with all it's accessories perfectly with plenty of room for roving. And it's the perfect little table to set the spinner on for spinning. My bigger carts are great for toting my wheel around - I can put all my supplies inside the cart and bungee my wheel on top -  helpful when going somewhere to demonstrate. Now I could buy a Zuca bag like many others with this spinner have done but I'm not ready (and may not ever be) to part with $200-$300 for it, no matter how neat it is. My cute little cart was $13.99 plus $5.49 for the lid - what a bargain. And the larger carts aren't much more.

Road Trip!

Road trip!!!! Left early Friday morning heading up to OFFF, Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival, or as Sam calls it Flock & Flea. First stop my road trip friends and I made was for the New Yorker bagel (cream cheese, lox, capers, red onions, tomato) at Bronx Bagels in Sutherlin, then a quick stop at Trader Joe's in Eugene. Then off to check in the hotel in Wilsonville and back on the road to Fabric Depot in Portland. And yes, I did buy some fabric but tried to restrain myself....everything in the store was 30% off plus had a coupon for 40% off one item. Sorry no pic - still in the bag in the pile of other stuff by the door. Pictures taken were with my phone so they're just so-so....didn't feel like carrying a camera.

Dinner at Sushi Track - annual event - there were 8 of us this year. This is what's left of my spider roll -yum! We all ate a ton of sushi Friday evening.

On the drive to OFFF we pass a dahlia farm in the Canby area - this is just a small section of the fields

Here's a close up - this dahlia was gigantic

A must is the ferry ride between the hotel and OFFF fairgrounds. I think our group are the only ones who do it - everyone else jumps on the highway.....but look what they miss, we see beautiful countryside too, we would miss those dahlias if we took the highway.....

Yes there were critters to see - this is a beautiful angora goat who liked having her picture taken

And yes, I did make a major purchase - a Hansen electric spinner - yikes! It's still in the bag as I haven't had time to play with it but I did test drive the one I bought before plunking down that credit card. I had trouble with a Woolie Winder in the past and wanted to make sure the one on the spinner was smooth - it was, I'm a happy camper. Oh, plying is going to be so much nicer now.......if I haven't mentioned it at least 100 times before I don't enjoy plying, it's boring and goes on forever. I managed to only buy a few small items in addition to the spinner and thank goodness I left without buying any spinning fiber - I don't need it!

Drive home Sunday found us at the outlet stores and Trader Joe's for some major shopping - torrential downpours driving home, hard to see the road at times.

Today is a dye day but it's chilly out, too chilly to be dealing with cold water out of the hose so am waiting a bit for it to warm up.....although it's clouding up and looks even colder out there.....