Yet ANOTHER New Hobby! Plus Rapunzel.

I've taken up spinning. Not the sweaty, furious pedalling of a stationary cycle with 20 other people in a tiny room full of mirrors. I mean spinning. For months and months, I oohed and aahed, and finally dove into researching what it's all about. After reading everything I could find on the internet, I splurged on this kit from "Maine Woods Yarn and Fiber" on Etsy:

It seemed to be the best value I could find on Etsy. At a mere $27.99 for a heavy spindle and 4 ounces of wool plus free shipping, I figured the worst that could happen is I would hate it and give it away. I paid via PayPal, so it shipped pretty much immediately, and it got here in hardly more than a real-time week. Well, it turns out I LOVE spinning! Here's some of the fruits of my labours:

Cherry KoolAid dyed roving, navajo plied with red Valentine pony beads. 12.8 metres. It was actually spun on a makeshift spindle made from a CD stack divider and a 9mm crochet hook, because my spindle actually had this on it:

It's kinda corespun, kinda coreless corespun, kinda semi-worsted-ish everything-yarn. There's bead garlands, yarn, nylon crap for making hanging plant holders, ribbon, lace, etc. Never measured because I immediately turned it into this:

The latest is this:

Believe it or not, that's cotton-fluff hamster bedding. My mouse HATES it, so rather than let the bag of what remained sit there useless, I turned it into yarn! This has been appropriated into my Rapunzel Scarf, which I've organized into six bundles of goodies, but have not yet braided. You can check out the swap gallery HERE.

I know heavy spindles are supposed to be for bulky yarns, but I gotta say, plying commercial yarns is a BREEZE on my Maine Woods spindle! I think next I'll get a mid-weight top-whorl for navajo-plied worsted weight yarns.

:D