1, 2, 3, count!

So yesterday, I went down into my newly usable basement kitchen to card some batts to take to spinning group.

I carded 3 romney/alpaca batts, but only ended up spinning one, as it wasn’t spinning up as soft as I wanted it to, meaning I need to add more alpaca.

(That’s about 7 ounces of washed alpaca fluff that is remarkably similar in color to my countertop).

Since you saw the basement kitchen last, I’ve added more shelves

and a corkboard to pin various project notes and color inspirations to, along with a few pieces of the girls’ artwork.

(That piece on the bottom right is a 3 dimensional depiction of the life of a silkworm that Abby made in class last year. It’s really, really cool, and theme appropriate)!

I navajo plied the batt spun last night to get it off of my bobbin, and surprisingly, it still made a very nice yarn. Good to know. I’ve washed it and it’s drying now.

And this is interesting… Here are two skeins of yarn made with the same wool, and different colors of alpaca, one black and one that reddish tan color.

The black skein is extremely soft and amazing, and that’s what I’m trying to recreate, this time, measuring and recording fiber amounts.

This morning, I carded a new batt that I’m trying to spin,

but Clark is enjoying holding on to my whorl while it’s spinning, and plucking my driveband like a bass ’til it falls off. And laughing. So the spinning will resume at nap time. Stinker.

I have some sock progress. I’m finished with one gusset, and almost done with the second.

And after taking all of these pictures this morning, I noticed a very large smudge on my lens, which would explain why they all look a little overexposed and fuzzy, but I couldn’t bring myself to take them all again.

Lame.