Dog's Paw Shawl, Part 2

Today was my 9/80 scheduled day off (yay!). Happy Summer Solstice, everyone! I plan to take a picture tonight later, just to show people how long the sky remains light up here in Seattle. It's 8:49 PM right now, and the sky looks as it usually does at 6 PM or so down in Louisiana.

I spent last night at Daniel's, and since he had duty today, it meant waking up at 5:30 AM and hopping on the 6:20 AM ferry to Seattle. Which was all well and good. I had to take care of some stuff that I'll go into in my next post.

Earlier this afternoon, I had a chance to catch up with my friend, Mark. I had made a batch of oatmeal cookies (I usually follow his base recipe, and then add whatever I happen to fancy at the moment. Today's batch was dark chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, pecans, and unsweetened coconut shavings), so I invited him to drop by for one, and we ended up walking down for a cup of coffee (mm 12 oz iced latte). Afterwards, we came back to my place, and while we discussed movie stars who had become attractive once they had reached adulthood (no idea how we got on that topic), I decided to proceed with my Dog's Paw Shawl work by dehairing some dog fur. The fun part is that Pia's down is the same color as my laminate floor...blonde.

This is my first major undertaking, I have to admit. I made a couple of blankets in college, but they were both crochet. I've never made a sweater, and the most complicated things I make now are socks. So, to spin for a large project is something both new and somewhat intimidating. I am just taking it slowly, though, and am not carding more fiber than I plan to spin relatively quickly.

Mark left soon after I started the dehairing, because he suspected the dander flying around was upsetting his allergies. To tell the truth, it was triggering mine as well. So I moved on to carding, and made four fair-sized batts. The picture below was taken after I'd spun 1.5 batts. (Yes, my coffee table looks like it has paint stains on it. In fact, it is a paint job I performed while still in Maryland, at 2 AM one morning. I was bored with this hand-me-down $15 IKEA coffee table my brother and SIL had given to me, and so I threw down some acrylic paint on it. It's starting to look ratty, but honestly since the table is still sturdy enough, I'm going to ride it out for a while. Soon I may take the paintbrush to it again, though...in the meanwhile, don't pay attention to the Kleenex and mug in the picture. :) )



After carding for a while, I came back to my spinning wheel. After seeing how neat Kim's laceweight looks when she is using her Woolee Winder, I am really tempted to buy one for myself... soon, soon. I am doing just fine with the flyer and bobbins I have now. I am guessing this single is around 36 wpi. How am I guessing that? Well, I haphazardly wound some singles around my ruler, and about 9 wraps fit within 1/4 inch... yes, I know that is a horrible estimation, but I didn't really want to stop spinning, and I was semi-curious as to how my grist was doing. There might be 2 oz of fiber on the bobbin? I haven't been weighing my batts, though. I am estimating each batt is about 1/2 oz, because that is usually the weight at which I see batts for sale advertised, but if I really want to answer this question, I should be more scientific about it. Enjoy the picture.