For some reason, going back to work was extra hard this week. I think subconsciously I expected my long weekend to be... longer. Don't get me wrong, four and a half days was great and very generous of my employer, but I'm having a hard time adjusting my brain to work-mode. I don't know if I just forgot to set it, or if I turned it off in the middle of the night, but my alarm didn't go off this morning. I woke up twenty minutes later than I was supposed to, which isn't catastrophic, but it is a rushed way to start the day. And all day today I just couldn't totally get into that work frame of mind. It made for a long day. But overall work is continuing to get better as I get settled in, and as a matter of fact, Thursday is my one month anniversary there. I am so grateful to have this job, and I have not regretted taking it for even one second. When I first heard about this position, I didn't believe I had even the slimmest chance of getting it, but I had to try anyway. And here I am! I just hope that one day I'm actually good at it!
To break up the monotony of 2x2 rib on sock cuffs, I've been doing a little more sample spinning. I love watching the transformation from fiber to yarn. The fiber goes through so many changes and the end product is almost always a little bit of a surprise to me. A long time ago, I tried my hand at dyeing some of my own fibers (which I hope to be able to do again soon). Besides the yarn in my last post, I haven't spun any other fibers I've dyed, so I decided to check out some of my own work. Most of them are a bit felted, but a bit of tugging alleviated most of that. Here's a picture of the roving I'm sampling, post-tugging:
It was supposed to be equal-sized bands of gray alternating with rainbow colors, but the rainbow colors spread more than the gray and dominate the roving. This becomes even more obvious with predrafting:
Once drafted, the gray, peach and green almost disappear completely, while the red, yellow, teal, blue and purple really pop. The colors become even more evident in the singles, with hardly a trace of gray to be seen:
I plan on making enough singles to make a good sized sample of 2-ply and of Navajo 3-ply. So far, there is a lot less gray showing than I thought there would be and the colors are much richer and darker than I thought they would be. I guess most of the gray got blended into the colors, lending them more depth. I can't wait to ply and knit samples and see what I get. I am very pleased on one front so far, which is the softness. The fiber I used was a blend of mixed wools which didn't seem very soft to me before it was dyed, but it has a great feel to it now. That is very reassuring, because it was a great deal on ebay at $3/lb and I have 15lbs of it!!! When I'm ready to dye again, I know I have good fiber for it, at least.
# posted by Jenni @ 11/28/2006 10:12:00 PM
