Sand for My Shoes

Yep. Those two bobbins you saw yesterday?

All plied now.

I used Abby's method of plying (to the best of my ability, at least). The plying is not perfectly even, but it WAS so much easier than the method I had been using. It took be about an hour to treadle my way through those bobbins, and I literally sat with a book in my lap while I did it, out of sheer boredom. Well, "boredom" might not be the exact, right word, but . . . sitting there, treadling, with my left hand doing absolutely nothing? The poor thing needed something to occupy it.

Anyway, this is 4 oz of Blue-Face Leicester from Vesper, in "Pacific." I got approximately 350 yds of yarn, at a very-consistent-for-me 22-24 wpi. (I sort of lost count, but it was at least 22 when I got distracted.)

By that time, you see, I was in no mood to re-measure or re-count anything. Because between this bobbin of yarn, and the one from last week, I had quite the adventure in skeining today.

First, I tried using my Majacraft Wheel Skeiner to wind off the "Tibetan Dreams" yarn and ended up with this problem again--the yarn winding on too tightly (despite my best efforts) and forcing all the pegs to lean toward the center so that the yarn kept escaping. Heaven only knows if that skein is ever going to let me wind it into a ball, or if it will just be one, big, tangle from all the times I had to stop and rearrange the strands on the skeiner . .  making them overlap in ways not originaly intended.

Obviously, by the time that skein was wound, I was in no good mood to try using that again for the "Pacific" yarn.

So I got out my back-up skeiner. Being horizontal, it's a little harder to wind yarn onto, because of the reaching-across thing (which gets wearying after the first couple dozen turns), but I figured it would be fine. . . . But, um, not so much. Apparently--even though the house is air conditioned--the summer heat has caused it to warp or some such thing . . . because I could not get it put together. With the two main pieces crossed at the center, the peg that holds everything together would not fit through the hole. It did when the swift arrived in February, but not any more.

I figured I'd try it anyway, but after twelve rotations, it was obvious that wasn't going to work . . . since the two pieces weren't fitting together properly, it wobbled way too much to try to wind yarn with. Of course, I then made the mistake of taking the 12 rotations-worth of yarn off the thing and, since I deliberately over-plied to make it longer-lasting sock yarn, it immediately turned into a nasty tangle. So, that's about 6 yards of yarn that I won't be getting back . . . although, I thought I'd try soaking the tangle to see if it relaxed enough to make it possible to untangle. (It's worth a shot, right?)

Which means that I skeined that bobbin's worth of yarn on my Kromski niddy-noddy . . . thereby making my shoulder (which was already upset with me about the wheel skeiner thing) that much more unhappy with me. Which is ironic, of course, because I got the wheel skeiner, and the other skeiner/swift, in the first place to help make winding skeins easier. Easier on my shoulders as well as just, well, easier. More efficient. Hah! I wonder if I would have been any happier if I had sprung for the more expensive Will Taylor version, or the Goko?

Oh, and I wasn't any  happier about my Lendrum's lazy kate which I was using to hold the bobbins steady for this skeining. (I'd already put away my Katie-a-go-go before realizing I'd still need it.) It just refused to let any of the bobbins rotate easily on their shafts--especially toward the center of the bobbins. I was having to PULL to get that yarn off of there. I mean, really pull, with my foot holding the base in place. Ugh. It was the perfect finish to a perfect skeining experience.

The one bright part of all of this? By the time I'd pulled out the niddy noddy, I was clearly not a happy camper. So what did my sweet boy Chappy do? He maneuvered the obstacle course of wheel, skeiner, other skeiner, skein of yarn, tangle of yarn, and lazy kate just to come over to me and give me a hug. As in, yes, a real hug--wrapping his arms around my neck and giving me a kiss. He just hates it when his Mom's upset, you know.

And, at least I'm happy with the way the yarn looks!

Comments

[Carol]

What a frustrating experience. I hate it when that kind of thing happens. At least your boy tried to make it better. Hugs are always appreciated!

[Chris]

Oh, man, that hug is about the sweetest thing ever!

[Carol]

No matter what tangles we get into, at the end of the day (and every part in between) it's the hugs that count!

[Kim]

Sorry for the unfortuante frustrating skein winding fiasco. The plied yarn is beautiful!!

[Beth S.]

Your Lendrum kate problem sounds all too familiar. I've struggled with this problem too, on occasion. It doesn't happen all the time, just sometimes; but when the bobbins don't want to let the yarn wind off, they REALLY don't want to let the yarn wind off. I have a few theories (yarn winding on unevenly when I start a fresh bobbin; too much or too little tension on the bobbins relative to the changing amount of yarn on them; someone hiding under an Invisibility Cloak and messing with my kate.) I've also thought about investing in a new kate to see if that solves the problem. That Katie-a-go-go is awfully nice-looking...

[marti]

Thank you for the link to abby's tutorial. I am going to try it and see if it helps my plying too.

[Jessica]

Geez... sounds like quite the ordeal. I'm totally with you on the lendrum kate being a pain in the you know what too. I actually had my Dad make me something to fix that problem this weekend, because I just couldn't stand fighting it with the woolee winder bobbins any more. Your yarn looks beautiful though!

[JessaLu]

Sorry for the frustrations...but thanks for the link. I bought a Will Taylor skeiner ;o)

Our animals are amazingly intuitive - glad Chappy was there to give you a hug!

[Catherine]

Sorry for your skeining troubles. We all have days like that, believe me I know.

If you ever have trouble with the swift not going together, in that the holes don't seem to line up in the center, just take one of the arms off and turn it 180 degrees and that will do it.