I finished my spinning!  So last time I wrote about this I had spun one ball and knit up half a pattern.  I had done this because

1. I was too excited to wait
2. I really really really wanted to prove it was real wool and not pretend wool
3. Lots of people who spin, spin what they need as they go
4. I was scared it might turn back into fluff if it wasn’t quickly marshalled into a knitted item
5. I was too excited to wait

But I only had enough to do half of the collar and it looked like this

 

Inspired to dash on, I then got straight back on with the spinning!  I was a little bit quicker this time and a little more careful.  If I got a big blobby bit of wool then I would go back, tease it apart and re-spin it all tidily.  I was quite chuffed with my attention to detail.  I seem to have got through a lot of fluff very quickly with this project – I guess because I am making quite thick wool due to inexperience.  I also think that there must be something that you need to do to make thinner wool – if I let the thread get too thin then the weight of the spindle (and the already spun wool) makes it snap.  So I think I have a chunky wool spindle.

It took me another three days to repeat the process, but my spinning was definitely better – more even and finer looking.  I don’t know if you can see it on the photos.

 

And two hours later I had finished the knitting.  There are lots of bonus’s here.  For six days making wool I reckon I got three hours knitting (if that).  Based on this calculation I am never going to be able to keep up with enough spinning to fulfil the knitting side of things.  Therefore I am still going to have to buy wool too – yay!

So what does my finished item look like?

I added extra buttons because they are super lovely buttons… and I put the first one in the wrong place.  It’s a lovely pattern, and I definitely think it suits the homespun nature of this wool – it’s also really easy to knit – I am contemplating dashing out 27,000 of them for Christmas presents.  Pattern is HERE.

So this only leaves me with one problem.  The wool looks different!  The first lot is less ‘spun’ than the first lot, and the second lot is definitely got more definition about it – I suspect I would have got different wpi if I had actually checked (of course I didn’t check – who do you think I am!).

So I am now doing that thing where people compliment me on it and I say – ‘oh thank you!  I spun the wool myself!  But what you can see is that I did it in two lots and I think I got better as I went on and if you look where these two ends overlap you can really see that there is a big difference in the wool I ended up with so it doesn’t quite match….’.

Please shoot me.  And pass me some more fluff – it won’t spin itself you know.