Distractions

So when I'm not knitting the endless sweater of tiny navy stitches, I've worked on socks and spinning.  Two pairs of socks have come off my needles.  One a pair of boot socks that I won't trouble you with further, the other pair are the sweet socks.

They're sweet, they're socks.  Not much more to say about them. 

I'm afraid that my spinning has exploded this week.  In much the same way that I have many, many projects on my needles, I now have multiple spinning projects in progress.  At first I was staying faithful to the Viola fiber and finished up a second skein:

Ruh roh! There's a little problem with consistency here.  Not within the skein but between the two skeins.  Lesson learned: one must spin with a reference.  These two skeins represent about one third of the fiber. 

Then I thought, I should practice my heavier spinning.  I don't really like that cheap merino I bought, so I've decided to use it for experiments.  Spinning it heavy seemed a good idea and it worked great for that, making a nice fat squishy yarn:

So happy results here.  I'm going to have to make more of this.  I also notice that I have less consistent yarn when I spin thicker. I need more practice at this weight.

And then I had a thought, I wonder if I can spin a laceweight?  Ahem. Apparently, I can.

This fiber is a merino cashmere blend that Paula gave me.  I hadn't felt worthy before this, but now.  Oh god, it's an obsession.  I want to spin this all the time.  What's with me and the fine gauge?!  I'm having dreams of knitting it up into an heirloom Shetland lace shawl. That will only take me a life time to finish, especially if I keep getting distracted, which seems inevitable because now look what has come for a visit:

The only thing that keeps me from playing with it all the time is that I'm such a noob.  It's another learning curve to surmount and I think I've retreated back to my spindles to remind myself of the fact that I CAN learn a new thing.

This wheel is on loan from the gracious, generous and oh so helpful Paula.  Paula is my hostess, who rents me a room to stay in when I'm working in Waterloo.  Next week, I have to stay two days and I'm going to get to see the new location of her yarn store. I promise, I'll bring my camera....