Spinzilla-ing Baby B

I've been aware of Spinzilla for several years now, but have never even considered participating. It always falls right around the Kentucky Wool Festival and I'm usually toast by the end of that and just want to take a nap.  This year I had my (rubber) arm twisted by a really fun group of spinners out in California (Meridian Jacobs) and I thought, what the heck.  I needed to get my Iknitarod yarn spun anyway.  This would be a perfect "excuse".

The original "plan" was to take much of the week off and just spin - a reward for (relatively) good behavior during the miserably hot summer.  That (as always) never happened.  Instead of the nap(s) I'd dreamed of taking, I was sitting down to spin after a late dinner and working well part way into the night.  Yesterday I finally got to spin during the day!

Baaxter's baby fleece is actually a bit darker than this.  It's hard to photograph dark browns and blacks. I could have changed some settings on the camera to correct for that, but I like how all the subtle colors show here.  Isn't he pretty?  I mean handsome ;-).

My spinning partner.  Well, one of them.

Kate appreciates a fine wool pillow!  Those are all the yarn scraps I spun with various learning spinners at the festival.  Quite a pile!

This looks pretty true to color.

I was sitting next to the front windows of the Wool House.  Liddle spent the morning sleeping at the gate where I think she either knew I was in the shop, could see me through the window, could hear my book on tape.  I wished I'd thought to take a picture.  This was taken during the afternoon. My sweet baby girl.

This is a redundant picture, but I like it ;-).  I've been winding off each full bobbin into a center pull ball to save for a major plying at the end.  My thumb was getting a little achy though so I decided to take a day off from spinning singles and go ahead and ply up the four balls I had accumulated to give it a break. 

Usually this works pretty well, but Baaxter was getting a little snarly/twisty/knotty at the ends of each center pull ball.  kbdoolin has extolled the value of using a plying ball, so I pulled one out and put it to the test.  In 25 words or less, you take the two (or more) singles and wrap them around a small felt ball (or cat toy ;-) at the same time/side by side (a two ply yarn is two single strands together).  Any snarls you come to are easy to stop and straighten out before you actually start plying.

This will work much better!  Plying is taking these two strands and twisting them around each other.

While everyone out in California was getting together to spin and eat yummy food and win prizes (I won one, too :-D), we were having our own little get together in Kentucky.  It makes me happy when  I look around and see all my furry family gathered around, as happy to be with me as I am with them :-).

Here comes sweet Spud, leading the flock out for a late afternoon snack.  He checked in with Hank and then started walking my way to say hi.

I saw Baaxter come around the corner and start down the hill and I called his name "Baby B-ee. Lamby Lamby" and sure enough, over he came.  Baaxter loves his momma.  His best buddy/little sister Liddle was with him, but she didn't come over.  Girl lambs...  Nobody loves their mommas like little/big boys ;-).

At the end of the day I had 1,178 yards spun and plied.  That's 3,534 "Spinzilla yards" (I do count two singles and 1 plying), so well over my mile goal :-D.  I'm still about 400 or so yards short of feeling safe with the amount of black yarn for my sweater, but I have today and tomorrow to add to that.