The wait is killer...

So, yesterday I got a little package in the mail. It was obviously too small to be my wheel. However, it hailed from the company that I'd purchased my wheel from (Village Spin & Weave), so I naturally tore it open immediately. Inside, I found the following:

My lovely new niddy noddy, which I immediately used to skein up (and count yardage) on my only real skein of handspun I completed on my spindle (it was 60 yards, by the way), the extra bobbin for my as-yet-not-arrived wheel, and 8 ounces of a lovely wool top.

I don't know what kind of sheep it comes from, as it is labeled "60-62's Wool Top", but it is extremely soft and buttery. It's slightly softer than the Corriedale Cross top that I have on hand (ordered from Pacific Wool & Fiber), and it drafts very easily. I can't wait to get my wheel and start spinning it up!

I read a good tip on one of the spinning groups on Ravelry: that one should spin up some pre-spun yarn (like acrylic) and then run it back through with opposite twist, just to introduce yourself to the wheel. I'll have to dig up that last ball of Caron Simply Soft left over from my pre-fiber-snob days and try that out.

I'd planned to get the living room spotless today in preparation for my wheel's arrival on Monday, but as they say, the best laid plans...My boy finally decided that he was sick of the peeling caulk in the bathroom (We won't mention how long I've been complaining about it) and wanted to redo the whole bit of it. So off to the hardware store I went, to procure caulk, a scraper, and a fender washer to use as a diz (I thought that perhaps dizzing the Ugly Batts I have would facilitate easier spinning, but more about that later).

Of course, things did not go as easily as my boy and our best friend thought it would. It took forever, and the bathroom was a horrific mess. But I cleaned it and it looks really nice now, so I guess that's my silver lining in the face of the living room's scheduled cleaning being pushed back to tomorrow.

During one of my breaks from smoothing the caulk, I sat down and tried this whole dizzing thing. I guess maybe the fibers in the batt I was trying to diz are just too short or something,  because it alternately got stuck in the diz or came apart at the slightest provocation. I was not a happy camper. I think I need to make myself a cheap DIY hackle and try dizzing off of that one of these days...just to see if I can do it at all.

I'll have to do it in secret...I've been forbidden to build anything since my adventure in creating the PVC Great Wheel. I don't usually argue about that, since immediately after he forbade my forays into DIY-ness, he promised that if I really needed or really, really wanted anything, we'd talk about purchasing professionally-made products with guarantees and warranties, heh.

Oh, and since I didn't get one up last post, here is a picture of the BFL that I mentioned. The colorway is Lupine:

 

And after I chained it up into a braid, just 'cause I thought that it was pretty:

I'll definitely write again as soon as my Symphony arrives, and in the meantime, I'm going to be working on a change in the branding for the blog!