And that’s how I know I have ADHD

So I just posted the saga of my current creativity over on bluesky (I’m needlefingers over there). Last year, I didn’t spin much. The year before was a heck of a year for spinning, and I miss it. Since distraction is going to be a welcome and necessary thing going forward, I decided to get out the eSpinner and work on whatever I had left off doing.

The Hansen miniSpinner has no wool

Whoops, it was empty. In a Guinness-breaking record for me, I decided on something to spin. But, I know I have three braids of fiber, but I can only find two. My brain doesn’t like that, so I decide I’ll just spin what’s on my regular wheel, as I do have a project on that.

The reason I have a project still on it is that when I was last spinning, the drive band broke. You can splice it by heating the ends (it’s a poly band) and smooshing them together and rolling the join smooth. However, that takes skill; sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. And since I was dreading finding out, I’ve left it alone since, oh, July or so.

So I got over myself and started spinning on it. It worked! Until it didn’t! So I spliced it again, let it set, and decided I would knit instead.

Now, I have a current knitting project (and plenty of non-current, if you know what I mean). It’s Stephen West’s Flying Foxtail Blanket. But I need mindless knitting. I have a bag of yarn that is my panic bag of yarn for travelling. Most of the yarn in there has no plan, but I figure if I get in a tight spot, I can find something. How hard could it be, right? (if you know me, you’re laughing right now)

So I hop on to Ravelry, and a mere two hours later, I have a plan. However, the plan is going to quickly require a size 11 needle, and there are none in the size 11 pouch. I have size 11 needles, probably lots.

Today when I got home from work, I decided that there must be stray needles in my gazillion project bags, and I bet there is a size 11 somewhere. The very first bag I look in has one! But, it’s attached to a work-in-progress (WIP). Why is it not finished, you ask? Well, there’s a lot of reasons I abandon projects, but this particular one is that I misplaced the rest of the yarn for it.

I continue to look through boxes and bags, hoping I will find a) a free size 11 needle and/or b) that darned third braid that is evading me. I did not find either of those two things, dang it, but amazingly I found the missing yarn for the WIP!

The missing yarn!

The plan now is to finish the abandoned WIP to free up the needle to continue the shoulder warmer while I’m waiting on my replacement drive band (still don’t trust the splice) so that I can finally spin.

And now it’s snowing here!

After the snow left the blog, it took its own sweet time and arrived here.  Probably 5-6″, maybe more.  What’s one of the only good things about snow?  Snow cream.

It has been all soap, all the time around here. There’s currently a fundraiser going at the local high school, there may be another one coming down the pipe shortly, Ramblin’s work wants to hold one for the employee committee, and I’m doing a craft show at the end of March. Why aren’t I making soap right now?!

And there’s been a bit of knitting. I started a shawl, almost finished it, and started having second thoughts about the color arrangement. So that got put aside, and I started in on the Loopy Academy second semester project.

Much better.

And there’s even been spinning!

I didn’t get great pictures of this, but it hasn’t had its bath yet anyway, so maybe the sun will shine by the time I get around to doing that.  It is two plies of Knittyandcolor‘s Not Drinking Merlot and one ply Holocene, all on merino-silk.  That little skein on the left was the leftovers of the Not Drinking Merlot chain-plied.

I guess that’s all the news that’s fit to print.  I’ll try to come back before spring.  Whenever that will be.

Just because all this school stuff is getting boring

 

This is some yarn I finally finished up last night.  How it came to be dyed is an interesting story.  I was dyeing a sock blank for the first time, and I had put waaaaaay too much dye on it.  It was going to turn into a mess if I tried to roll it up for steaming, so I grabbed this bundle of wool, plunked it in for a quick soak, and smooshed it onto the sock blank to mop up the excess dye.  Turned out beautiful.

The original sock blank had a zigzag of neon green going down the middle of the blank with red-purple and blue-purple in the alternating triangles.  The sock blank was a much deeper color that this fiber, but since I put the acid in with the dye, more of the pigment strikes on application, leaving fewer particles in the runoff, hence the lighter shades.

It’s a fingering weight three-ply yarn, about 700 yards.  No idea yet as to what it will become.

TDF update

I finished the Goldfish Wearing a Tutu:

More Tutu than Goldfish

And started on the next, a merino/tencel blend (maybe), dyed by yours truly.

Shade Garden

And this is the above fiber in its braid form.

Spun out

So yesterday, I decided to do some spinning.

See, there’s yarn going on.

I finished filling the bobbin last night.  And tonight, I plied.  And plied.  And plied.

And for those of you keeping score at home (and after 1 3/4 years, you really shouldn’t be anymore), that is the fourth skein.

There’s just two items of bad news.  One, I’m not even half done.

(Half would be 500g) The other?

I have to start all over again.