March 5, 2012

Spinning, grown-up things, and not so grown-up things

So, it seems that not only has my crafting ADD struck again, but it's spread to non-crafty pursuits as well. This week, I had planned on finishing up some projects that have been sticking around for a while, but I could not resist the siren song of my spinning wheel. So much for sewing and knitting this week!

I received a really interesting fibre batt in the mail that I was really curious to see how it would spin up. The colours are not ones I'd normally choose for myself, but I find that more and more spinning has been taking me out of my colour comfort zone. I'm so glad that I took the chance with this batt because I'm totally in love with the results!



Next up, I set to work on some beautiful fibre I bought ages ago from Hilltop Cloud. A gorgeous merino/alpaca/sparkle blend, it was just asking to be made into yarn.



The next fibre I initially picked up to spin for a handspun swap. I had the perfect idea in mind, until I discovered my partner was not a fan of art yarns. So I had to rethink what to spin for her and was left with a beautiful batt for me. I spun up the batt as evenly as I could and plied it with some white merino that was spun mostly even, but with super thick sections. I plied these two together and ended up with super pretty and fluffy art yarn! I love how it looks like clouds, or marshmallow fluff, or something.



I'm sure you're asking yourself why I spin when I have crafting ADD. It's simple, really. Spinning is as close to an instant gratification project as it gets. A simple, single yarn takes just a few hours to spin up, then it just needs its bath and to dry. A two ply can be started and finished the same day if I do it on the weekend. With knitting, unless I'm making a simple hat or something, a project can take anywhere from a few days to months. This week was all about the instant-grat stuff for me, so spinning was the logical choice.

In non crafting related news, I decided one night that as a (mostly) responsible adult, I tend to make healthy, grown-up decisions when it comes to food. So of course, I decided this means that once in a while I get to be ridiculous and have brownies for dinner. Mr. Social wholeheartedly supported this decision. I got to bake (first time in a long time) and to make brownies for the first time ever. This was a delicious decision on my part.

I forgot to take pictures, but they looked something like this....but with pecans


Of course, I had to compensate for such a childish act by spending the next day doing the following grown up things:

- 6 hours/4 loads of laundry
- making a giant pot of chili to make sure we had grab and go lunches in the freezer for the week
- doing dishes
- other assorted cleaning

Basically, I re-learned that sometimes, being a grown-up is awesome, other times, it sucks. But at least I have pretty yarn.

4 comments:

  1. Love the before and after pictures. It's amazing how much it changes. The third....I love the rich darkness before probably the best, it's sooooooo colorful. Anxious to see what you make with all this yummy yarn.

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  2. I love your before and after pics, the yarn is so pretty. I know what you mean about instant gratification, sometimes its just whats needed.
    I love your brownies and the fact that you had them for dinner, being a grown up is sooooo boring at times and its good to let loose and remember what it was to be young..er lol.

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  3. Beautiful spinning! I'm so excited to get spinning again, I hope my yarn looks as good as that!

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  4. Spinning looks so neat and cool; what fun transformations take place!
    Yummy lookin' brownies there. I have baskets of clean laundry to separate and put away today...sigh.

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