Big and Fast and Beautiful

I have be-hatted my son for the winter, but no hat for Dizzle yet. I decided I wanted a bulky, colorful yarn for her hat. But alas, none in my stash. Whats a girl to do? Spin her own. I grabbed "Lantern Festival", the offering from Hello Yarn's fiber club for the month of July. Here it is all pre-drafted:

And here it is all spun up. There are 2 batches, the first 2.5oz I did watching the Sox win game 7 against Cleveland, and the last 2.5oz was done during naptime yesterday afternoon.


Attention mothers who are spinners: Not only to babies (still) like watching you pre-draft colorful roving (please note: mobile babies REALLY love it, to the tune of grabbing and helping a little too enthusiastically), you can also spin up a whole bunch of yarn during naptime if you are content with big fat singles. Who knew I could go from roving to knitting in 24 hours. I may have a new favorite spinning method. Talk about instant gratification.

Specs: 5oz Corriedale, "Lantern Festival", really not too bulky, about worsted weight (?) I got 450 yards out of 5oz, which seems like a lot. It is so hard to make my hands spin fat yarn. I split the top lengthwise into quarters, and predrafted it as you see above. Slapped on my biggest whorl, increased the take-up so I had to keep my hands off of it as I spun, and even then I positively could not prevent myself from drafting it down further. I was shooting for pretty fat and while this is fat for me, its not quite as fat as I like. Regardless, its still perfect for a hat and is knitting up very prettily.