I’m on vacation this week.  I really needed the break from work and travel so it’s certainly a nice change not to be getting up at 5:30 a.m every morning.

I set this time aside to work on upgrading the website, writing scripts, promotional stuff etc.  However, I really hate debugging CSS and I’m sitting in my library surrounding by yarn, fiber and spindles and I keep finding myself completely destracted.
The first thing that got me started was that on Friday, my Indian Charkha arrived all packaged very nicely with the postage from India handwritten on the cloth wrapping.

After carefully undoing every stitch of the hand stitched cloth wrapping, thinking that I could actually save this, I got out the scissors, cut it up the side and removed it from the box.

The ebay seller had already replaced the cotton rope drive band with a rubber one which is great because I’d planned to do that anyway.  First thing I did after opening was to watch two DVDs which I bought to show me how to put the thing together and how to begin spinning with it. (Elaine Benfatto’s Charkha Spinning Tips & Techniques, and Spinning Cotton on the Charkha with Eileen Hallman both purchased at The Woolery)

It took me a couple of days on and off to watch the videos and then a little while to actually sit down and try it out for myself. When I finally got things going, I took some organic cotton and tried it out.

I filled up two spindles with some uneven but tightly spun cotton.  I’ll ply it later when I have some time.  While I was doing this fiber, I kept thinking to myself that this would be great for the remaining Bison fiber I have which is an extremely short staple down fiber. So I gave it a try and it worked really fast.  I filled up another spindle in just under 5 minutes.  so I ran it off onto my substitute bobbin (aka TP roll)

It’s much softer than what I did with the Golding spindle since on the Charkha you spin long draw which creates a woolen yarn as opposed to what I did on the spindle using short draw (see prior entry for picks of buffalo spun on Golding spindle)

If all that wasn’t enough, I’ve had some Barefoot Blend (Superwash, Mohair and Nylon blend) from Paradise Fibers sitting on a bobbin which I have been waiting to try Navajo plying with.  It’s a handpainted fiber with pretty long color changes and I thought it would be cool to try out Navajo plying to retain the colors in the fiber in a 3ply yarn.  I plyed it on my Fricke e-spinner after first trying with commercial yarn and adjusting the tension etc..

The other yarn pictured here (on the top) is a camel/silk blend which I’ve been spinning and just love..

I’ve also been working on some luxurious Mongolian Cashmere and Mulberry Silk, gorgeous!

and some lovely bamboo

Should you think that I’ve been neglecting my knitting, I would like to show you a little something which I am working on:

This is a Selbuvotter (that’s a norwegion mitten) which I am doing with KnitPicks Palette and the pattern(s) are from Selbuvotter:A Biography of a Knitting Tradition by Terri Shea. I got this at NeedleArtsBookShop.
 I’ve combined the cuff from Annemor #7, the hand from NHM #7 and I’m going to do the thumb from NHM #9.  I’m making them on size 0 needles for two reasons: I’m a loose knitter and I have really small hands.  So these are a child’s large or a women’s small.

All my other knitting is for Christmas gifts so you won’t see any of these on my blog.  If you’re interested, check my WIPs on Ravelry.

Well, now I guess I’ll get back to debugging CSS and restoring the mySQL database from one blog to the new one…….