Snail Spirals

OK, so I've not been in a blogging mood recently. Obviously. I even missed my own 5th blogiversary back on the 18th. It's been a stressful little while here, what with the severe reduction in my hours at work, and Shaun's nine-month University contract schedule which means that he doesn't start getting paid again until Oct. 1. Next week can't come fast enough.

Anyway, the whole taking pictures and downloading them and resizing them and posting them and composing the text of a post has seemed like an ordeal, one that I didn't have enough energy to contemplate, even though I have several projects I'd like to share. I actually finally got to it this afternoon, though, and would like to show you this:



Regular sock yarn, pretty, soft, 75% superwash merino, 25% nylon, blah blah blah. Looks like regular sock yarn skeins. Pretty but seen everywhere across the interwebs.

However, this sock yarn looked like this before it grew up into pretty twisted skeins:



I- me personally- MADE this sock yarn. This is the Fiber Optic pencil roving (colorway Superstition) that I purchased and started spinning at Sock Summit. I spun these skeins on a SPINDLE!



To say that I am proud of this yarn would be an understatement.



It looks like regular 3-ply sock yarn. It is squooshy and soft and has a nice bouncy firm twist. I made it on a SPINDLE!

Each skein is 56 grams. One skein measured at 220 yards, and the other at 230 yards, which in my book is an acceptable variation, given the inaccuracy of measuring yardage on a niddy-noddy. The singles were spun on my Spindlewood square mini, and I chain-plied it on my wheel.

I preserved the color sequence of the roving between the two skeins, since the pencil roving was dyed with two strands held together. I spun each starting from the same end, and since each half of the roving took two spindlefuls, when I transferred the cops to the storage bobbin, I rewound them twice to maintain the proper directionality. I hope to get similar striping patterns when I knit the socks.



I don't know if I'll be able to bear to walk in the socks, though!