The Trick Is To Be Stoned

So I've been practicing spinning a bit here and there, and actually remembering to take pictures, because I want to actually blog about it, not just think about blogging about it. Look at me go, blogging about it!

At the spinning workshop I bought this extra batt to practice with:

It's a mixture of cashmere, wool, firestar, and bamboo. Here's how it spun up:

I would have been happy with it, except the white bits (the wool) didn't draft nearly as smoothly as all the other fibers, and so it made for nubbly bits here and there. I felt like if those bits hadn't been there, the results would have been much more consistent. I liked the pink and orange together, though.

A while ago I ordered a sampler from a woman here in Utah who has an Etsy store:

It's all merino wool. I wanted to practice seeing how the colors end up spinning up together. I can't yet see in my mind what things will look like spun up. It'll take practice.

So far I've only spun one of these. Before:

After:

Interestingly, I didn't like the colorway that much in the braid, but I liked it more spun. Not my favorite, but pretty good.

As I've been practicing, I've had two goals: to spin thinner singles, and to spin more consistent singles. I think overall I've been getting more consistent:

These three pictures are in order, of course. You can see the last one is much more even than before. Interestingly, I spun this one while I was on Klonopin (and I was knitting on Shelby's shawl the other day and I had had an entire bottle of wine, and I knit faster with fewer mistakes). Interesting...