Oh, someone save me. I’ve caught the spinning bug. Yesterday, I continued spinning on some of the wool that mom brought for me along with her spinning wheel last week. I honestly don’t know what it is – she’s the one to ask about that, but it’s a naturally grey wool that mom hand-dyed (with all the navy and burgundy, it’s definitely a mom colorway), and it’s quite sticky, so it was good practice for drafting purposes. I got impatient and wanted to see what it would look like plied up, so I spun another bobbin’s worth yesterday, and then plied the two together last night.

What you’re looking at is 1.1 oz. of my very first handspun yarn. As I said before, it’s very thick-and-thin, and I’m not sure it’s good for knitting anything with… But it’s lovely in my own eyes, as it’s … my very first handspun ever! And now for some close-ups:

After I had finished that, the itch to spin hadn’t been fully satisfied, so I selected another bag o’ wool from the rather large stash that mom left with me and kept going while I watched the Late Show.

Here we have some undyed corriedale top. I found it to be a lot more slippery than the previous stuff, but man oh man, do I love it. It just glides through my fingers, and despite it’s slipperiness (is that a word? it is now), I found it a lot easier to control, and the resulting yarn is far more consistent than my first attempt’s final product. It’s so pretty. And it feels so nice. I love it. Why can’t I find a job where they’ll just let me spin and knit all day?

More on places I’ve called home: Towards the end of my evening o’ spinning, I heard something interesting on TV. The Late Show was over, and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson came on (yes, it was late late … I couldn’t help myself, I just wanted to keep spinning!) Apparently he had done a show at some comedy club in Birmingham the other night, and on last night’s show, he was talking about Homewood. Homewood is a small city that’s part of the Birmingham metro area, and it’s where I lived my senior year of college. I got a real kick out of listening to Craig talk about how he loved the downtown Homewood area – the place that commercial America forgot (if only he could have seen it a few years ago – there actually are some chains that have snuck into downtown Homewood now). And while I’m rarely nostalgic for Homewood (or anywhere in Alabama, for that matter), listening to him talk about the people (“they say hello to you on the street, and they mean it!”) and the places I know made me just a tad homesick.

Well, even though my spinning wheel is calling to me, begging me to pay attention to it and spin some more of that glorious corriedale top… I’m off to job-hunt some more.