Thursday, August 30, 2012

Spinning My Wheels And Getting Nowhere

The title about sums things up with my spinning today. I've been working on plying this gorgeous mix of blues/greens (It looked like a lake) of BFL fiber that I'd spun into singles. I'd decided to ply it with a metallic silver thread. So far, so good, and the first of the two bobbins of singles went pretty well. In fact, it's now sitting in a hank/skein. On to the second one, and this is where things started going wrong.

First of all, I ended  up spinning a small section of it the wrong way - all my usual clues lead me wrong. Got that fixed, and solved the snapped plying thread - though the join isn't the nicest. Got quite a ways farther in - maybe a third of the bobbin of singles, and the whole bobbin popped out of the flyer. Got that fixed (or so I thought. It turns out, I think, that it was part of the bigger problem) and continued plying.

That's when things got really fun. First of all, the plying thread ran out. Not a problem, although my joins are atrocious. I had another package. However, at about two thirds of the bobbin of singles is when I discovered the real problem: The end of the bobbin I'm plying onto had separated from the rest of it. Not the end for the brake band, but the other end, and the plied yarn had pushed it right off of the rest, so of course, the whole thing didn't fit properly on the flyer any more. I'd had hopes of finishing the singles before I had to deal with it though.

I think I made things worse instead of better. I got to about the 3/4 point and the whole thing fell off the flier again. So, rather than break the thread and end up making three hanks, I unwound the whole thing onto a handy cat toy, so I could transfer the skein to a new bobbin - which needs replacing too (I think all of them do, really). This one's got some nicks that catch the yarn.

Fun, fun, fun. It turns out, I can't remember which way I was twisting it, so I'm now stuck. If I go the wrong way, it'll mean adding more twist again, and that'll be a mess.

I just want to get this lot finished and off the wheel. If I never have to see it again, it'll be far too soon!

Update: I've managed to figure out which way to spin it again, and gotten the whole thing back onto a new bobbin. Now I'm back to the point I was at before the whole mess started, and I've glued the old bobbin back together again.

It'll at least get me through the weekend - where I'm going to need all the bobbins I have, I think.

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