Awake and Spinning

I know, I know. Everyone who reads my blog (or USED to read it before I slacked off) is fed up with me for not posting pictures of my remodeled kitchen. And I was going to put the pictures up today. I really was.

But then I realized, if I WAIT, I'll continue to have a captive audience for my riveting, adventurous tales of YARN.

Somehow, with everything going on - all the death and destruction and remodeling and packing and moving and cleaning - I have managed to spin 700,000 skeins of yarn and knit two mostly finished sweaters. I think it's because of the new wheel. I am pretty sure it is a time machine.

Speaking of time machines, at some point I'm going to have to give up my car because it is 10 years old and sounds like an airplane taking off and I don't think Dug is ever going to fix the ceiling fabric that is now drooping down so low it will soon cover my eyes when I'm driving. (Yes, I KNOW I could figure out how to fix it myself - that's not the point. I'm lazy, people.) Anyway, my car had this really nice feature of going back in time during transit, so that if a party started at 7:00, I could leave my house at 8:00 and get there at 6:30, making everyone feel super awkward and concerned for my social skills. When I first got the car, I named it Penelope (not sure why), but now with all the noises and the time travel and it being blue, I've rechristened it the ReTardis.

Eh? Eh? Get it? Sigh.

Oh yeah, yarn. I've spun and knitted so much crap, I didn't know where to start with the show-and-tell, so I've begun with the first stuff I spun on the Majacraft when I got it. This is the extremely soft and snuggly chocolate alpaca I bought on the trip to Illinois last year, when we stopped at Apples and Alpacas in Mexico, MO. That was such a fun visit. I can't believe almost a year has passed since then.

I love how this yarn turned out. I managed, miraculously, to learn how to do the long draw spinning technique (drawing back with the drafting hand and not smoothing down the fibers as you go - allows for a softer texture) and didn't overtwist it, so it turned out very silky with a nice fuzzy halo.

I DON'T love how I had to take 3000 pictures of it to get only ONE which is remotely the correct color - it's the right color on the bobbin shots above, but somehow it defies photographing once plied. Also, it is not blindingly reflective in real life - indeed, it is not shiny at all. Not sure where that's coming from. Cousin Mark? I'm going to need you to drive to Kansas to photograph my yarn properly. 'Kay? Thanks.

I also don't know what to do with it. I got 2.5 skeins of it...maybe 400 yards or so? Any ideas?