in between liberating my car from the bastardry of The Man and being trapped in subway tunnels (p.s. my (first) train home friday got stopped too, in about the same spot, but for only about ten minutes and they never shut off the motors, thankfully), i am still up to no good. i promised Pirate Dan a spinning post the other day, so a spinning post i shall now make.

m. saw my spinning wheel last night. said he, “it’s so PVC!” said i, “i know!” i have a ghetto fabulous spinning wheel. i’d hug it except that i suspect i’d wind up accidentally poking an eye out.

so long as i’m posting knitterly stuff — i made another pair of socks, my second, out of the beautiful yarn my secret pal sent me, and on my way to work i decided i should photograph them on their first wearing.

Sock and Kiyoshi

today i decided to teach myself navajo plying, mostly because i don’t really like plying two singles together; it’s annoying that i always have leftover bits. so as it turns out it’s very easy, and i used some of those leftover bits i hate having to practice. my first attempt might have had a little more twist than it really needed:

Navajo plied yarn

but the second turned out a lovely little tiny, tiny skein:

Miniature skein

(don’t mind the television in the background; i’m just a giant nerd whose idea of wholesome saturday morning entertainment consists of an entire pot of coffee, yesterday’s episode of “Washington Week” on PBS, and spinning yarn. I DO SO HAVE A LIFE; SHUT UP.)

then i decided to watch the extended version of The Lord of the Rings – The Fellowship of the Ring, and spun up some pink roving and then plied that into yarn during the movie. it is now hanging in my shower to dry after having been wet down to set the twist. it is currently being weighted down by the first handy heavy-ish object i spotted, which happened to be a half-empty bottle of bubble bath. pictured alongside it is the white stuff from the first attempt at navajo plying, now pretty much dry, which calmed down a LOT with the judicious application of water.

Hanging wet yarn

i’ve actually got another bobbin full of the pink stuff, navajo plied (i had that one already spun into singles, and plied it during the movie), but i was too lazy to wind it off onto the niddy noddy and wash it, so there it sits, sadly enbobbined, awaiting its chance at the shower curtain hook drying area. perhaps tomorrow it will have its chance. or perhaps tomorrow i will actually do something productive other than make yarn that i have no idea what on earth i will do with it. it’s very nice yarn; don’t get me wrong. i’m just not sure what i can do with, oh, probably 400 yds. total of worsted-weight 80/20 merino/silk blend. in cotton-candy pink.

anyways, those are my latest excursions into the field of fiber arts. watch this space! coming up soon: an in-depth soul-searching analysis of the knitted christmas gifts i never finished (or hey, in most cases, started), and how perhaps they might be good rebranded as st. patrick’s day gifts, instead. or arbor day. people need gifts for arbor day, right? TREES ARE NICE! CELEBRATE THE TREES! HERE, HAVE SOME HANDKNITTED GOODS!