Mikknit

I needed to replace some of the yarn I pitched last night (and needed to de-stress a little!), so I started spinning my $2 Romney. I found a box of wool at the Textile Center of MN Garage Sale in 2004. It was labelled “Washed Romney Fleece, $10″. I thought it was a good price, so I grabbed it. When I was checking out, the checkout person saw a different label, on the other side of the box - “Washed Romney Fleece, $2″. So she charged me $2 for it! It sat and sat and sat, waiting patiently for my attention. I finally got to it this weekend.

Here’s the box. It was a bit more full originally - I’d already carded one or two batts’ worth of wool at this point.

Carding. That’s a Pat Greene Deb’s Deluxe, I believe. Love it! The wool carded up like a dream - minimal teasing needed to fluff it out, little to no second cuts or vegetable matter. So nice! A bit of dust that made me all sneezy, but not too bad.

This is what I spun up last night. I think that’s about 1.5 batts’ worth of wool. Looks like it’ll be about a light worsted weight once it’s plied. The bright white blob there is Mimi, investigating the bobbins. The spinning wheel lives in a spot inaccessible to cats and kids, so when it comes out everyone’s fascinated.

I’ve been doing some knitting, too. No progress pictures since there’s not much to see, but here’s a picture of what I’m making:

The Ladybird Bootees from Zoë Mellor’s 50 Baby Bootees to Knit. So cute, hopefully I’ve got the right gauge this time. I had to rip out my work from yesterday, so that would be why there are no progress pictures.

Speaking of knitting, I should go do some.

Hi, I’m an idiot. I wrote this three months ago. I had grand ideas to sort through everything and freeze out all the buggers while it was still cold as hell outside. Did I do anything? Nope.

Fast forward to this evening, when I spotted a small winged creature fluttering around in the upstairs hall. I squashed the beast, but I know he wasn’t alone. Once the kids were down for the count, I started in the wool/fabric/catchall room. Started putting yarn into ziploc bags, tossing odds and ends and yarns that I really thought were more at risk of infestation and the ones that I wanted an excuse to pitch. I brought down two garbage bags filled with ziplocs of yarn, and there’s more to come. I ran out of steam. There’s still a bin of handspun up there and a couple bins of assorted yarns. I wonder if they can get into Sterilite bins…

I’m honestly afraid to inspect the basement wool stash. That’s where the fleeces are. I put some of them in the space-saver bags a few years ago (I think I did my pregnancy nesting by carding wool). Well, those things have shitty seals - don’t count on them to stay shrunken. One of those bags has two small shetland fleeces from a friend’s flock and another has a gorgeous silvery-gray fleece that I bought at Shepherd’s Harvest right before I got pregnant with Grace. Some of the stuff that I’ve been looking forward to spinning for ages, in other words.

I need someone to come hold my hand while I go look down there.

What do I do if it’s been infested? Do I rewash the fleece and try to make the best of it, or do I pitch it?

I’m going to toss and turn thinking about this all night. Bleah.