catching up

I went home a little early last night, and I was all excited because every other day this week it's been after 9:00 before I started spinning and I was tired. "This night will be different!" I thought, incorrectly as it turns out. I ended up cooking, which was certainly an idea whose time had come, and then my husband called and we ended up talking for an hour an a half. By the time I got upstairs to the spinning wheel, sure enough, it was about 9:00. I persevered and spun anyway, and the yarn came out much better than the night before. (Usually when I think something has gone badly, I come back later and realize it's much better than I thought. Not the case with Wednesday's yarn: it's just bad novelty bad.)
In other news, I worked on the blanket for Project Linus the whole time I was on the phone, and sure enough, I ran out of yellow with three and a half rows (of yellow) to go. Reluctantly, I think I will break down and buy some more yellow. I want to make a big yellow sun for a blanket that's been on hold for months now, so I can use some of the rest for that. (Said blanket, if it ever gets finished, will be a scene of a pond with frogs and flowers and things for my best friend's daughter, who loves frogs. Obviously it needs a big yellow sun in the sky, preferably one that's nice and soft like this yarn. The sky is done, and I made a fish and a half entirely by winging it and with complete and amazing success. However, the tedium of the vast blue sky and pond has defeated me since July or August, and I still have no clue how I'm going to crochet a frog. I think they may be a bit trickier than fish. Yeah, just a bit.)
When I started the Project Linus blanket, part of my purpose was to use up this leftover yarn. I am again defeating this purpose by buying more yarn! Darn it. But I really can't think of any attractive workaround. The yellow is just so...yellow. It appears in every other instance of the repeating theme that ties the blanket together. If I skipped it or replaced it with another color for the last instance and a half of the repeating theme, it would just look stupid.
Anyway, I went around this morning and tried to take pictures of all the things that had been defeating me, and I scored two victories. At long last, here is the darn butterfly clip on the Little Gem!




There are two loops that you could thread the yarn through. Take my advice: don't. This only makes things worse. Even the instructions say only thread it through one, the closest one to the bobbin. The other loop is (presumably) just to give you something to squeeze on the other side when you move the thing.
Also, here is the crazy yarn I made on the Journey Wheel!


I was going to work on it some more to even out the plying twist, but maybe I'll just wash it and see what happens. I actually love the way it looks now with all those crazy twisty parts, but if I used it, you wouldn't see those anyway, unless you just glued it to something as it is or some crazy thing like that.
Anyway, I really enjoyed making that yarn and all the yarn from that gorgeous roving. This week I've been using some undyed wool that I got at Little Barn really cheap, thinking I should work with the cheap stuff until I get the hang of this wheel thing. But I'm getting a little bored with the cheap wool. Yes, natural sheep color is pretty, but it's not the most exciting thing in the world. I think this weekend I'll break out the Kool-Aid and at least dye the yarn I've made from that wool this week. I may try dyeing the actual roving, too. I'm afraid I'll felt it and make it harder for myself to work with, but I guess if I'm going to do that, it might as well be with the super cheap stuff! I'll try not to though.