⚧passing beyond memory and into forgetting⚧

Ive got 2 full bobbins of the southdown, and decided to spin another bobbin of this red merino which I bought specifically for the southdown, back when I hoped to spin it finer. But I figured it'll still help stretch the southdown for a bit of extra yardage, plus it should help even it out a little (the southdown is very hard to spin evenly when doing a thicker long draw). And I probably won't use this merino otherwise, so, might as well !

I was initially spinning it using my usual short forwards draft, but it was really hurting my hands after a while, so I switched to short backwards draft. I don't think I've ever actually successfully done short backwards draft but I was emboldened to try it because of all the long draw I've been doing. It's much easier on my hands and not too hard to get consistent. And a little more interesting, too.

(I think)

Im at about 1 and 1/3 of a bobbin right now. I havent done quite as much per day as I wanted (aiming for half an hour a morning, currently more like 15-20 minutes). Gonna try and catch up a little this weekend and maybe move it to my bed so I could sit up in bed and do it ? We'll see !

They come with some BFL on either side (probably as a barrier because trying to pull straight southdown off of carding cloth without it ripping to shreds is very difficult), which for all the other colorways I've bought from this shephard is great, but with this one it has kind of a candy cane effect once spun, which isn't what I'm going for.

Luckily it peels right off. There's some stray BFL but not enough to bother me.

I decided to just process all of the batts at once so that I don't have an extra step to cause executive function problems later.

Anyway here was the result. I was kind of worried when I saw how big the BFL pile was (basically the same size as the southdown !), but I weighed both and theres approximately 350 grams/12.5oz of southdown and 80 grams/2.75oz of BFL, so the BFL's volume is almost entirely air.

I'm thinking if I finish the southdown with time to spare (which I ought to), I'll blend something with the BFL and spin that next so that it doesn't take up tons of room in my storage. It has lots of flecks of red in it which should be an interesting effect, just have to figure out what to blend it with.

(And yes, this huge pillow of southdown batts was extremely satisfying to squish)

I've spun 2 batts so far. I can't remember how many I have, I think 10 ? Need to check for sure. (EDIT: fifteen !)This was 45 minutes but I had some left over from yesterday, so I think I could do one in about 30.

Been doing long draw because this particular breed is so grabby that it requires very firm drafting and that was really hurting my hands, but then after about 20 minutes of long draw it was hurting my shoulder... so I switched hands so that Im pulling back with my left arm and 'drafting' (mostly just attenuating/pulling out big chunks of vm) with my right hand ... I usually draft left handed so it got a lot messier. It would be helpful to be able to draft with both hands though so I'm gonna try and stick with it !

I didn't know you did pottery!!!

lol good eye ! And yes ! I'm very new to it but it has rapidly taken over 99% of my free time.

Had to abandon my inital plan (to spin as much red southdown as possinble into a 3 ply sock yarn) pretty much immediately, because it turns out the espinner cannot actually handle running as fast as it needs to run to spin southdown that fine. Here's the bit I managed to do (chain plied) before sadly giving up on that plan.

So I pivoted to a much thicker yarn, which will probably be more like a 2 ply light worsted weight. Not sure what I'll do with the resulting yarn because I certainly don't have enough fiber to make what I planned initally. Idk, I'll figure it out later.

My goal this year is to spin for half an hour every morning. I probably won't post every day but I will be spinning every day, I hope ! Today I spun more like an hour but I wanted to get half an hour of this thicker yarn done.

Found this very nice towel, really pretty and sturdy and soft, but whoever had it last decided to mend a hole in it by ... sewing and ironing a piece of nylon strapping onto the hole. Sick and twisted.

Anyway, obviously had to fix that. And the other little hole next to it.

I'm sure this wasn't the most effective mending job, either, but it should hold, and the fabric kind of matches, too