Tien Chiu

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September 7, 2005 by Tien Chiu

Spinning away

A bunch of things are happening at once:

  • Fair Isle is FINALLY starting to feel natural. I used to be able to do only one or two rows before getting frustrated/antsy, now I can do a couple rows at a time. I’m still much slower knitting English-style (yarn in right hand), but it’s improving.
  • I found a book on Celtic knotwork and have revived the Celtic-knotwork-egg projects. Thus far I’ve set up the grid on a new egg, and am playing idly with knot designs, looking for an appealing border and an appealing center design. It’s fun to be messing with it again.
  • I’ve started spinning again! I’ve set up the wheel and am happily making yarn. It’s pretty lumpy-bumpy yarn–I haven’t spun on a wheel in well over four years, so it’s just like learning to spin all over again. But I’ve bought eight ounces of merino roving (one a variegated dark purple, another a variegated purple-blue) and I figure by the time I finish spinning that into a sock-weight yarn, things should be a good bit better. My fingers have already improved a lot just from spinning the first ounce.
  • I bought an accelerator head for the Suzie so I can get really fine yarns, like the ones in my spiral shawl. I haven’t tried it out–I figure the time for that is after I get the hang of spinning thicker yarns.

Other than that things are relatively quiet around here–I’m spending much of my time spinning and knitting, and playing with Celtic knotwork when not doing one of those two.

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