Hot Off the Spindle

I've just finished up a round of plying some lovely lilac alpaca with gold firestar blended in to itself. See what you think:

The most recently plied is on the spindle on the right, which is an Avi Wasserman spindle. The spindle is huge, made of paduak and ebony, and I must confess, I do not love it as much as I ought. It is very nice for plying because of its size, but it doesn't have notches on the whorl, and I am just no good without those notches. So, if you've been longing to own an Avi, do let me know - perhaps we could trade a notched spindle in your collection for this one. Or maybe some mereno - I'm using up my wool, but I don't have any nice mereno, and I'm feeling much too thrifty to run out and buy some.

Now, you might be wondering what's going on with all that other fiber... I like to start with one blend and then ply it with other yarns to see what they look like. You might argue that five different colors of yarn won't make a sweater, but I think we all know that there are no sweaters in my future. I'll stick with the joy of blending, and my Mom can stick with making hats. And maybe scarves. And socks? They don't really have to match, do they?

I hit a school sale this week and picked up the lovely container in this picture. I know, you're supposed to keep your fiber heavily guarded in containers that don't let the light in, but what good is it to make yarn if you can't look at it? So I've taken to collecting containers of this ilk, and then lining them up on the entertainment center, in amongst the Legos.

I come by this containment system fetish fair and square - my Dad liked containment systems as well, though his preference was for bookshelves. Unfortunately, he didn't like the depth of a standard bookshelf, so he started asking my brother to cut all the bookshelves in half. My brother, who doesn't have a silly bone in his body, refused to cut the shelves in half because he said Dad would end up with two flimsy particle board book shelves, and the only way to use them would be to attach them to the walls. So, finally, I started taking them into town, where Dad convinced a fellow to cut them for him.

Now, you might ask why I went along on this junket, but all I can say is that given my own love of a good containment system as a mechanism for displaying one's stash, it didn't seem right for me to get in Dad's way. But I will confess that in the end my brother was right. We now have a basement full of particle board bookshelves that have been cut in half and attached to the walls because, well, they won't stay up any other way.