I got stuck in packing hell for a few days but I did get to spin so here's what happened.

On Day 14 I plied the spun mystery roving, because I wanted to keep spinning with my new toy the wooden spindle. And then I got "just a new leader, just to get the ball rolling" started with my usual roving, which was less forgiving than the scratchy stuff, but somehow nicer to work with.

Anyway... I got a blending board yesterday and here is what I made so far:

The orange rolags are mainly the BFL I dyed with Annatto a few weeks ago, mixed with various orange mill ends, including a little bit of sari silk. Its so soft and the colour is so peachy and creamy, reminding me of Bellini.

Then I blended a mix of different brown and green mill ends I had flying around, probably around 10 different types of fiber. It turned out absolutely perfect, deep and earthy browns and greens with lots of texture and colour variation. I have about 65g of this and I'm really excited to spin this!

Next is another test for my idea of a watermelon art yarn. The fiber content is extremely varied, a mix of several sheep races that I dyed two years ago. The initial fiber prep wasn't that great, densely carded with a lot of lanolin. The dyeing process didn't help any so now even carded again its not that pleasant to spin and I can't get it do draft evenly, but thats completely fine for this project. My biggest problem is with the black nepps, as they refuse to stay during spinning, losing a little bit of that watermelon vibe I'm going for.

10 grams, slightly thick and thin, approx. fingering weight. Lordy lard has it been a long time.

I don't like the way this spindle is behaving; it begins to counter-spin pretty quickly, so I'm taking another spindle in the truck with me.

I've been spinning on the little bottom whorl drop spindle for a bit and... It's getting hard to get my half hitch securely around the top. So time for a change.

Have I fixed the 3D printer yet? Nope, I was too busy sewing and being in the ER. But my 10-yo, bought, 3D printed Turkish drop spindle is lying the there, so let's try adding some fiber to...

Aaand it's too heavy to hold thread. Which is fine. It's not like this thing has always been an utter pain to disassemble with thread on it and--

Well. The good news is, it's no longer fighting back. The bad news is, those cracks are not supposed to be there. This is someone printing what I've got reason to believe is someone else's model for profit, without crediting them. Out of PLA, which, as we learned on day one, is not impact resistant. (It's meant for prototyping, not longevity.) The shaft doesn't match because that broke ages ago. The sides of the crossbeams show that whoever printed it struggled with bed adhesion--and used infill meant for speed, not durability.

But, for now, it's holding together just fine. It still spins the most stable of all PLA-based spindles I've got. I know which free model got used, so I can print a replacement as soon as the printer is fixed. So, turtle off, new leader on and we'll see if it holds out until my impulse buy comes in.

The spinning wheel do be functioning now! I'm very pleased to have restored it from wonky broken unfinished homebuilt second hand store cheap thing of a wheel :') used one of my least favoured rovings (it had very clear pale mossy greens and oranges along majority of the roving in the photos but what arrived, well. Not so much.) Merino, silk, bamboo, and tweed fluff.

For a first try on tried to restore wheel, and haven't touched a wheel at all for well over a decade, I'm more than happy ^^

Extremely stressfull day today. Really only had time to sit down to craft for five minutes now and then. Imagine my surprise when I finally escape the party prepping committee to find three skeins ready to ply.

Also made some pin loom squares from handspun yarns today.

On another note, I have decided on another goal: I want to finish spinning the entire kilo of manx by the end of Tour de Fleece. 350g more to go. That's doable, right?

finally got my wheel out today! making sock yarn from some sw merino/nylon top one of my nephews helped me dye at new years. only got a third of the way in or so because I hadn't used the wheel in months and I kept stopping to troubleshoot noises... but that's still progress, plus my wheel now has had the whole flyer and bobbin broken down, cleaned, and re-oiled AND there's a new drive band on. thought I would do a bit more after dinner, but fiyero disagreed and since we haven't had good chair cuddles since before Tour began due to the various kinds of travel and disruptions, I don't have the heart to move him 💚

Started and finished the second bobbin, then began the third bobbin. Had some fun take up issues at one point but it should smooth out

Spun another 25g; putting me ahead of my goal, which is comfortable. Halfway through the black and white alpaca. It's a bit coarser than the brown and cream, but still nice.

Today was Lonk day! This is "stricken" Lonk, which is referring to the black fibers sprinkled throughout the white that gives the yarn a lovely gray tone.

Also pictured is my helper today: Henry the elephant. He is good and baby. We had a nice chat about how he's made of the same kind of stuff I'm making. Though his yarn came from dinosaurs and not sheeps.

I had plenty of energy today (thank you past me for observing our designated rest day!) So I also finished up my second single of For the Whimsy and plied it on itself.

Bonus pics of the center pull I plied from and it all wound off on the niddy noddy:

After several days of letting it rest while I spin more, cleared my bobbin so that I could ply the next round.