The Return of Spinning

Um, hello?

I swear I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. As a matter of fact, I find myself doing more with my knitting and spinning now than I was but that means even less time for things like blogging. I've also felt a little bit lost as to what to write about. Several of my projects have been big, big projects that are taking forever to finish. That means less to write about.
I have finished some things of note though.
Today I'd like to discuss some spinning although it isn't Tuesday and is therefore a little out-of-the-box for me to talk spinning. But it's Friday. The Friday before a long weekend no less so I couldn't walk away without posting something.
In December of last year my Gritty Knits Merino of the Month club arrived and I knew it was perfect. Not for me, for my knitting friend Catherine. She had knit a lovely cowl and gifted it to me since it didn't work for her. I had been searching for just the right thing to give back to her in trade. It was a little difficult since Catherine loves subtle, semi-solid colors and I tend to buy bright, multicolored things because they make me happy, even though they drive me crazy trying to find something to knit later.

I knew this was perfect though! It was subtle and green (just like something lovely I had seen her knitting so I knew the color would be right too). I didn't want to rush in without her approval so I took it to knit night and she agreed it would work and that she would love for me to spin it for her so I got it onto the bobbin.
The reason it has taken this long? It was laceweight. Four lovely ounces of laceweight and with my spinning mojo disappearing for great stretches in the winter, it was hard for me to bring myself to work on it. I tried to get a bit done here and there and it slowly started to add up. I got one bobbin finished and I moved on to the second. That of course feels like the home stretch so I worked diligently on it (although still a bit sporadically I'm sorry to say).
I finally finished the spinning, let it rest overnight like a good little spinner. That part is really hard for me. At that point I want yarn! I don't want to wait.
I finally plied. I was hoping it was going to get great yardage for her; we were aiming for somewhere between a laceweight and fingering weight finished yarn. When it took me hours and hours and hours to ply, I figured I had achieved my goal.

Finally, a finished bobbin.

The real test, using something to compare. So far, so good.
The only way to know for sure though is to measure it. So I wound it off onto the niddy noddy.

There it is, a thing of beauty! Yardage-wise, it came up to a true laceweight 830 yards. I'm calling it 800 to take into account any plumping or shrinking during washing and I carefully washed and twacked it so it's ready to go to its new home.
I hope Catherine loves it. I'm a little bit sad to be giving it away but I know she will knit it into something fantastic!