I'll tell ya what I'm gonna do.

Donna Lee and several others wanted to know how I intended to spin the pound of Purple Trainwreck. I intend to spin it just like I'm spinning the Berry Picking sock yarn I'm working on now; worsted-spun triple-ply. I'll probably chain-ply it like I'm doing the sock yarn. I may get a wild hair and do regular triple-ply, but I doubt it. Chain-plying is less bother. (Spoken like a self-taught spinner.) As for pre-drafting, well, that'll be the same too, so yesterday while working on the sock yarn, I took some photos.

The carpet beetle situation has forced me to get organized and kind of paranoid; the up side is, there's almost no cat hair in the fiber when I spin it, now. The orange nesting bowls were scored for sixty cents each, on sale at Hancock Fabrics. They'll even hold water if I ever go insane and try to wet-spin linen.

I use three bowls, plop the roving to be separated in the middle bowl, and start pulling the roving in half.


Once I've got the roving halved, I roll up one half - way too heavy to spin from yet - and put it back in its storage container, to be dealt with later. Then I shuffle the bowls, and split the half into half again.


I keep doing this until I wind up with something almost, but not quite, as thin as a pencil roving. Exactly how thin depends on how thin the single is, that I'm aiming for. But for sock yarn, it's pretty darn thin.


Usually that's it, and I roll it up and toss it in storage container number two.


Once I've got the second storage container full of rolls of roving to be spun, I seal everything up, re-nest the orange bowls, and then use that to hold the single ball of roving as I spin it. I get more out of the storage container as needed.


Mostly this is it for pre-drafting, but if one of the almost-pencil roving splits weirdly and is uneven or a little too heavy, I will do formal pre-drafting and pull it between my hands to thin it down and smooth it out.

Und THEN, I schpin! (That's supposed to be a silly fake German accent.)

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In other happy news, I got a "Kreativ Blogger" award from Tinkingbell!

Apparently I'm interesting and clever. Always a nice thing to hear. Thank you!

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Also, I caught the Goob watching TV and reading a book yesterday. (I made her move back from the screen, as soon as I took the picture. Honest. Well, and got done laughing.)

All she needs is some knitting, and she'll look just like her mum.

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Speaking of knitting, the orange sock is too big. I'm starting over. I'd like to complain, but I keep thinking it's good practice. Left the knot out of Judy's Magic Cast-On and am much happier. It's still kinda uneven but that just needs practice. I've got piles of stuff I really should be knitting... but I keep returning to the spinning wheel. That's what I do when I'm stressed, and with the retirement and more musical doctors at the Air Force base, well, it's a darn sight better than real tranquilizers.