My first yarn!

Day three of spinning was not good. I sat down and started spinning and became so frustrated with how over twisted and uneven my yarn was coming out. This just HAD to get easier. Rather than chopping the lovely Minstrel into kindling, I walked away and turned to my good friend Ravelry for solace. I didn't post anything, just read every spinning forum I could for tales of other's spinning troubles. I came across a thread talking about Scotch tension and it was like a light bulb went on. My wheel could run double drive or Scotch tension. Maybe that would make a difference. So I got my Teach Yourself Visually book and set about switching the tension and getting it adjusted properly. It didn't take long and with trepidation I picked up some roving and tried again. It was such a HUGE difference. Now, maybe I just had the tension set wrong on the double drive (although I did fiddle with the tension quite a bit on days 1 & 2, I did it more by feel than actually following the written instructions) so I will try the double drive again some day. But for now, I'm spinning along like a lark. Its fantastic! I'm still getting some thick and thin spots, but that's really improving. This stuff actually resembles yarn. I even managed to get enough singles on 2 bobbins to try my hand at plying. Here it is folks, my very first handspun yarn

It's about 15 yds of 2 ply corriedale wool. It looks just like the book says, like a string of pearls. Its not enough to really do anything with, but seeing how it's my first yarn, I want to keep it as a souvenir anyway. My next goal is to spin 2 full bobbins and see how much yarn I can get.

The lovely roving came from Hanks in the Hood. Look how pretty!

I am really tempted to spin a little bit of it. But I'm going to try to resist temptation until I get more consistent. I would really like to turn it into yarn I can make something with. Maybe a hat. Oh goodness. I just went over to Etsy to grab her URL and see she has new rovings listed. m u s t n o t s p e n d m o n e y. Quickly closing Etsy.

And, I'm back to knitting. Hubby asked if I'd knit a sweater for his friend's little girl. Quite serendipitously, the new Lion Brand catalog arrived the same day and I found this adorable little Eyelet Yoke cardigan. I didn't have enough Cotton Ease that's called for in the pattern, but decided to make it with some Knit Picks Bare superwash merino worsted yarn. I can't remember what I originally bought it for (yet another reason for the yarn diet!) Someone on Ravelry mentioned she knit the sweater in one piece rather than in pieces. And she was right, it's very easily converted to be knit whole. The yarn is lovely. I decided to put the swatch through some washing tests since it is for a child. So far it's been through 2 cycles with no shrinkage or felting and it appears to only be getting softer. When the yarn diet is over, I may have to get some of this yarn to make myself a sweater!