You Spin Me Right Round...

I was planning on not posting until I had taken pretty pictures of my latest acquisitions.
That might mean I never posted again, so instead I am going to break out my best descriptive skillz and see if I can explain to you the lushness of my latest score.

On Sunday, we had a York knitters’ gathering at Minniemoll’s house; where the lovely CarolL and hubby taught us how to spin. It was a really nice few hours. (if you go to CarolL’s blog and link through to her flickr, the spindle o the wisp is mine!)
Having already had a little spinning experience, (I was given the Nancy’s Knit-Knacks Spindle Kit for Christmas by OH) and my own spindle, I feel I had a bit of a head start. That said, some of the other ladies were quickly producing what looked a lot like actual yarn!

A yarn sculpture
Originally uploaded by maryplain

Woo! anyway, I had lots of fun spinning some nice thin singles, and then plying them. I got to try out a nostepinne. A nostepinne is basically a stick, but a bit more glamorous. It is a smooth slightly tapered piece of wood, with a notch around the tip. (It’s really very fallic – though that could be my filthy mind) you can use it to make a center-pull ball for plying with, rather than the Andean bracelet. The Andean bracelet involves wrapping the single around your hand, and around your middle finger. If you’re not careful you can cut off the blood!
So, at the end of the session, CarolL and hubby brought out lots of beautiful spindles and roving for us to drool over peruse and buy.
I picked some superwash merino in pink and blue and green and yellow and white. It made me think of clowns’ faces and sweeties all at once. Resolute that this would be my only purchase (other than my teeny spindle for spinning fine yarn with) I then peeked into the bamboo-merino bag. And there was a lovely pink-and-purple-and-green roving that just screamed out “Tsuki! Buy me!” so I did.
I’m still practicing on the Falkland top that we were practicing with on Sunday. I’m now using my teeny tiny spindle, which is made from walnut wood. It weighs only 14g (unless I mis-remember) and has such a lovely spinning motion.

We’re almost ready for the holiday. I still have to de-fuzz and sort out my nails (I was going to go to the salon, but she’s booked up), I still have to pack the cases although we do have a pile o’stuff we’re taking, which is good. Also, I have to sort out my knitting and crocheting for the journeys.
I will probably be finishing the second monkey on the way down South. I should offer to do some of the driving though. Then I have most of Thursday and possibly some of Friday morning to finish that!
Of course, I can’t take knitting needles on the plane, so thanks to a lovely swapper in the UKarma group on Ravelry, I have some wooden crochet hooks to take instead. I hope to make Fit To Be Tied (Rav link only) from the Happy Hooker. I’m hoping to photocopy those pages so that I don’t have to take the whole book with me! There are a couple of others that I would consider too, but I don’t think that the flight itself is that long.
Then, any time after the start of the Beijing Olympics (20:00 in Beijing, 13:00 BST or 14:00 French time) I can cast on for either of the socks I plan to make for OH. They are also my sock putt entry, so have o be finished by the closing ceremony on the 24th (which is also when OH and I hope to be in Edinburgh for the Festival, so perhaps I’ll get train-based knitting time, though I do have to post that I’ve finished, so really my deadline is the 22nd)
That should be plenty of knitting to be going at, so that’s all I am taking. I am still undecided about whether to take my spindle or not. I’m erring towards not at the moment.