I'm not graceful.

Last night I was spinning a big ole hatbox full of the pretty pale BFL that I prepped before the kitty poo explosion and it was going like gangbusters. It was thin and consistent, and I was in my seventh heaven because I didn't have to break my rhythm to pre draft. I finished about half a bobbin's worth of lightweight singles when disaster struck...My fiber broke and the end buried itself in the spun yarn like a gopher in a hole.

Having not yet learned an effective trick to find this kind of lost end (Against all logic, it seems that cursing doesn't help locate lost ends. Who would have thunk it?) I decided that maybe it was time to take a break from the fresh fiber spinning and to try to learn a new technique and to empty the rest of my bobbins from the tyranny of leftovers that needed a home..

After reading all the info and watching some fine tutorials online I decided that Navajo plying was just the ticket. It was a bold decision, as I have only plied twice in the traditional methods, and as you might have figured out, I'm just not graceful. But I forged ahead.

For those who are not familiar with the technique of Navajo plying, its a nifty way to take one singles yarn and turn it into a three ply yarn by making spun chains of fiber out of looped yarn. You basically attach your yarn to your leader, make a loop in it that's big enough to pull your fiber hand through, and then you proceed to pull subsequent loops though the loop before it with one hand- this happens while you are treadling and controlling your twist with your other hand. Sound a bit like patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time? It is.

There was much flailing about, panicky pulling of loops, and forgetting to remember to feed the plied fiber onto the bobbin until I got into the swing of it. Boy Howdy! it certainly makes for a nice looking yarn when you do it right. I think about 25% of my finished product was identifiable by the end of it. I just need to remember to slow down, take a breath and keep my rhythm and it all works out.

After I ran out of singles to ply and all of my (non-BFL) bobbins were empty , I ended up breaking the yarn on the bobbin of BFL singles with the buried end and winding it on to another bobbin until I found the end where my spinning stopped and broke originally.

The spinning gods had to have been smiling on me because it only took about 3 yards of winding before I found the end. Once I got it all back on track, I readjusted my wheel and got back to the BFL. All in all it was a pretty good night for spinning.

In other news, I discovered why the minimalist cardigan was trying to kill me. Yeah, I've been wrapping my purls backwards (for me, maybe not for anyone else) and it was making the knitting way too tight when it came to work the next row. I'm not even sure how the light bulb went off that made me see the issue...I'm just really glad that it did.

Once I swatched it up correctly I could see the impact of where I had been going wrong. The good news is now the knitting will not be so horrid, the bad news is that I am going to have to frog back to the ribbing and start all over again correctly. Dem are da breaks. But at least it gives me hope for successfully completing this sweater after all.