A funny old week

It is being a funny old week, with me feeling less than in top form. I was out and about on Monday, doing a little spinning, and that both threw my routine out of whack and gave me a headache from sitting in a hot conservatory for too long.

I did have a Show and Tell for Tuesday, but we lost our broadband as I was in the middle of preparing it. When connectivity returned, I was feeling too tired to be bothered doing anything at all.

Wednesday spinning saw my cake flop (but still tasty) and my energy at its lowest level in this last two weeks of general slumpitude. We spun at our local Heritage Centre, courtesy of the lovely M — and we hope to have gained a new member to our group. Wednesday WIP recording did not happen, and I think we shall just give that a miss  as there is nothing new and interesting to share due to my complete lack of interest in doing anything at all this week. The Herbivore is completed and will be an FO on Friday, if I can pin it out today. It proved to be almost perfect knitting for a disinterested and tired knitter, though there were times when I could not even be bothered to pick that up.

Today I feel much better. I think perhaps I must have had some kind of virus passing through my system recently and it is now on it’s way to curse some other unsuspecting soul.

So. Thursday Thrill, where are you? Perhaps we shall have to settle for a minor tickle this week, enthusiasm levels are far too low to be thrilled about anything.

Two things came out of yesterday – I made an outline plan with another spinner to spend a day or two weaving together when Mr L goes away later this month. That should be great fun. And I gained a Hebridean fleece from SpinningGill — my plan is to work the entire fleece while Mr L is away. I shall get out my wheel and my carders and leave everything out and ready to spin at a moment’s whim. I plan to teach myself to spin “Woollen” long draw and to practise by spinning the whole fleece that way. For further discipline, I shall make a 3-ply. Sadly, a Hebbie is a small fleece and there will not be sufficient 3-ply for a jumper for either myself or Mr L, so I have no particular end project in mind for the yarn. If you have any ideas, I would love to hear them.

The fleece was fairly wet when I got it home, so it is drying on the clothes airer in the utility room. It led me to consider washing the fleece before spinning it. I mean, it is already pretty wet, so why not? But we are mid-September now and I cannot reasonably hope for enough successive dry and not-too-windy days in which to dry a fleece outside. We normally spin in the grease but I’m thinking that the whole principle of woollen spinning, as I presently understand it, is to incorporate loft and air into the yarn — and that’s going to be a whole lot more effective without the grease, isn’t it?

Advice please?

Anyway – it may not seem much of a thrill to you, dear reader, but it is very exciting to me to contemplate returning to fleece spinning after my extended detour into rovings and tops. I look forward to clearing out my stored fleeces and eventually producing loads of rustic knitting!

I am hoping to develop a balance in my activities and spend much more time spinning than I have been doing, far less time knitting, and then I should find some weaving time in there as well. In my perfect life I would find time for all three activities every week and still have some left over for paper, ink, paint and clay…

(I’ll try to get Tuesday’s post up soon!)