Adaptation!

See that right there? You might have to biggerfy it to spot the telltale sign that Jesse Fucked Up. See the yarn coming off the bobbin? See how the purple abruptly gives way to red? Yeah; my armsock is too short.

But do I admit defeat? Sell it at a discount? Try to come up with a cute name for it and pretend I meant to do that? Frog it and make a headband? No! I am Napoleon!

I wind the remaining yarn (originally destined for the other of the pair) onto a handy marker so the purple end is out:



... and then attach it to the work in progress and keep knitting.



Result? An extra-long armsock which, while not the thing I originally meant to do, is quite long enough to keep your wrists warm. Well, wrist, singular.



Fortunately, I have more of that dye lot. The other half, in fact, of the strip I dyed as one piece, which I then split, then split one of the halves to get the yarn above. Confused yet? Unfortunately I'm thinking I split it unevenly, since that half was clearly underweight. So down to my cozy spinning corner I go:



You'll note that it is also the guitar corner, despite the lack of amps. Don't ask me. It also has gobs of fluff drying over the radiator:



Those are technical terms, you know. 'Gobs', I mean, and 'fluff'. A gob is about 50 grams or 2 ounces give or take, as much as you'd want to spin at a sitting. 'Fluff' is any fiber you'd voluntarily rub on your face. Merino is definitely fluff.



Anyway, when I put the rest of the rainbow on the scale, it weighs in at 21g. Apparently the whole thing was underweight. Hopefully the same amount underweight, so I end up with roughly matching armsocks. I split the fiber in half lengthwise (tried to take pics of the process, but the dog got curious and distracted me so none of them came out) to make two narrow strips, each of which has the full rainbow:



Then I spun them. Starting from a red end, I spun one of the strips all the way to its purple end, joined the purple end of the other strip, and kept going until allgone rainbow.



I'd show you a pic of the bobbin waiting to be knit up, but it looks exactly like the other one, so you may as well just scroll down a couple entries if you want to refresh your memory.

That was day before yesterday that I did that, by the way. I meant to blog it yesterday, but then yesterday snuck up and was suddenly lame at me. It was stealth suck. I woke up feeling okay, and discovered good news -- someone bought three of my yarns. Yay! I went straight off to mail them out. Once I got back, though, I started getting achey, and everyone was mopey and confused and loud, and then my back hurt like whoa, and it was gray and cold and almost-gonna-rain-but-never-quite-ish, which I hate. I just kinda gave up on the whole concept of Tuesday. I dicked around with Seebs's sweater a bit --



-- and then spent the rest of the day spinning laceweight on a slow bobbin.



Luka and the Captain kept me entertained.



The yarn came out nice, though. Lookit!



I understand now why so many people love spinning laceweight. It's just so restful. And it takes a loooong time, so you don't get that feeling of 'oh crap I'm going through my precious merino like it's fountain soda!' The problem, though... I don't knit lace. Never saw a need for it. You'd have to tuck a $20 in my waistband before I'd consent to wear a shawl. But it's been bothering me a bit, because it's a skill I don't have (it bugs me that those exist), and besides, it seems a bit mercenary to spin it just to sell it. If I had more knitting friends I'd make giftie, but all my friends are more like, "Is this yarn? Why is there yarn here?"

I was rambling disjointedly on that topic while spinning that laceweight up there, and Rah cautiously allowed as how she'd wear a lace shawl. You know, if there happened to be one going spare. If, for instance, I made one for practice and didn't want to keep it. And if it were, maybe, made out of precisely the sweet Antique Rose colored merino I was spinning at that very moment.

You know, just if it kinda happened that way.

So that stuff's spoken for. I'm working on another skein of the same weight and texture, though, which I dyed in a colorway I'm calling 'Painted Desert', and I reckon that one'll end up in the shop looking for a home. Now I need to learn how to knit lace.

HEAY INTARNETS! HOW I NITS LACE?

This is gonna be interesting. :D

Oh, I didn't say anything about today, did I? That's because today sucked worse than yesterday. I didn't get pictures of anything. I feel like I got slung in a sack and beat with sticks. The only good things about today was spinning a few dozen yards of that Painted Desert stuff, and tater tots. There were tater tots. Those were good. I need a drink. Excuse me.