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Spinning Saturday + Caturday

Note: I do realize it's not Saturday today! This was the post I wrote yesterday before my internet connection went haywire. I decided to take my Ladybug out to the back porch to spin up my Wensleydale top, and now that my internet connection has mysteriously righted itself, I am sharing this post today! 

I'm still spinning up a storm! This week, I pulled out two fibers from my stash: the first, 5 oz. Finn top from Spunky Eclectic in natural cream that I've had in my fiber stash for several years; the second, a braid of very pretty hand-dyed Wensleydale roving from Northbound Knitting, which I purchased earlier this year. I thought it might be interesting to spin singles from both of these fibers and ply them together, but a lot of that depends on how the Wensleydale spins up. The Finn (also known as Finnish Landrace or Finnsheep) was surprisingly lofty - you can't really see the halo in the photo below, but trust me, it's there!
It was really a dream to work with - very light and springy, and it seemed to just fly onto the bobbin. I like the idea of plying it with a dyed single, but I'm a little worried that all of the halo will obscure a colored ply. It might be better to spin up another single of Finn for plying purposes; I don't tend to buy light-colored yarns, and I really like the idea of a minimally-processed natural yarn spun by me (and also, that means I'll need to buy more spinning fiber....). Here are a few fun facts about Finn sheep:

  1. These sheep breed a lot and are known for multiple births. Is there anything cuter than sheep twins and triplets?!
  2. Their fleece is lightweight with a long staple length; it blends easily with other fibers.
  3. They are small, friendly and relatively low-maintenance. Which means that I'll be asking for a Finn sheep for my birthday this year. 


In preparation for another Spinning Saturday, I spent this morning waxing my wheel - there was a lot of debris from the last few projects, so I thought it could use a little routine maintenance before spinning up the Wensleydale. Speaking of which, I have a new plan: I was rooting through my fiber stash and found some merino/silk roving that might do the trick. Again, I suppose this depends on how things spin up today, but I am starting to think that Plan B is the way to go!

I would be remiss if I didn't share a few of my favorite instagrams from this week in honor of Caturday - plus, it's been a while since Tilly and Robin have made an appearance on this blog! Enjoy!
One of Robin's favorite spots...it used to be my knitting chair!
This is Tilly's happy face.
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