Small Triumphs, Small Tragedy

There's been progress on the Christmas spinning and knitting front. Here's my mom's feather and fan scarf, just needing a good blocking. This a Grafton Fibers batt, which I spun up and plyed with Zephyr. I love how it turned out!

Next up: A mistake rib scarf from brother #2, from my handspun Ashlands Bay merino/silk roving. This is about half-done and it, too, is turning out very nicely. Suitably masculine, yet soft and warm against the neck.

Have I shown these off? Here are 167 yards of bulky weight yarn, from 5.8 ounces of superwash merino roving. I'm afraid I have lost track of the etsy artist from whom I bought this.

And here are 102 yards of gorgeous bulky yarn, spun from 3.5 ounces of merino roving from handpaintedyarn.com, given to me in the recent Knittyboard swap by the generous and thoughtful merlinthecat. I think I might make myself a Madge hat from this, and any leftovers can go into my Lizard Ridge afghan.

That is the end of today's good news.

This morning I was skeining up a nifty two-ply - half fiery Grafton Fibers batt, half Sheep Shed Fire colorway Corriedale roving - and the inevitable happened.

My swift broke, in a totally unmendable spot - the little plastic doo-hickey that actually holds up the swift cracked in half. I guess you really can't expect more than 15 or so years out of a basically cheaply made yet complex tool. I think I'll get another just like it, if possible, so I'll have spare parts. In the meantime, I'm already suffering from swift withdrawal - life just ain't the same if you have to spend it skeining up new yarn around chairs and elbows and stray protruding parts around the household.