Something said in a TdF forum over on Ravelry made me remember I have a Russian spindle. I had to hide it to keep it safe from gnawing kitties and out of sight is out of mind. When I found it, it was loaded with green Merino but I couldn't find the bag of wool I had been using so I wound off the green and restarted with some fawn Alpaca that I could find. Of course I found the green the next morning when I wasn't even looking for it.
No matter, the Alpaca is lovely. It is from a favorite Etsy store of mine. I have never spun Alpaca before so this is going to be an adventure. My intention when I bought this spindle was to learn to spin thin-very thin-Orenburg lace thin. I can hear you snickering from here and I don't blame you. I think I'm crazy too.
I was happy to see that the green Merino singles were kind of thin-but also very fragile. This type of support spindle is tricky business.
With this small amount, I had nothing to lose so I wound it off into a center pull ball and plied from both ends which is very risky business with this thin of a single.
Everything was going along better than expected when the dreaded knotty clumps began to appear. I was ready to give up and toss it.
Somehow with a little gentle coaxing, I managed to free it all up and continue on until the very end. That tiny loop on the hook is like winning the jackpot. It means I wound the entire ball without wasting anything.
Unhappily, I only ended up with 9 grams of fingering weight not the true lace weight I had hoped for. I compared it to some yarn that I had just knit a shawl with that I had made on a Bosworth mini. Hmmmm.... not much difference between the two. I had high hopes on the Russian but before I blame the Tabachek, I better go check out those videos again. I am sure I'm doing something wrong.
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