Off to a conference

Tomorrow, Coffeeboy and I head off to our big annual gathering of scholars of religion.  This year we are both interviewing; it's my first time on the market and he's on again after a year off.  He has lots of interview (count 'em, five!) and I have one. I'm really really proud of my sweetie for netting so many interviews!  My interview is at a school I'm interested in, plus I'm still ABD, so I'm not terribly surprised I only got one.  I'm taking some knitting along, a basic sock for Coffeeboy and a plain vanilla sock for myself.  No need to stress myself out with difficult knitting.  

Coffeeboy's sock #1

This week, when I haven't been prepping and researching for my interview, I spent time thinking about fiber. Last year's SAFF got me all excited about spinning; this year I got very excited about bettering my spinning, and took too few classes in that regard, so I've been reading Ravelry spinning forums and perusing some of the books on my shelves.   I think I got myself thoroughly confused over whether I'm a right- or left-handed spinner; I write with my left hand, but I apparently spin right-handed (with my left in front and my right hand in back).  I also decided to try the fast flyer on my Lendrum, for the first time since getting it a year ago, and wow! What a difference!  It's really fun to use.  I love treadling slowly but getting such a fine yarn. Maybe I'll be able to spin 3-ply sock yarn after all.  

In making these explorations, I did try several new things at once, never a good idea: a new flyer, different hand positions, and merino fiber, which I haven't spun all that much of yet.  It seems to have gone well though.  I've been playing around with some plain white fiber and have spun a first layer onto two bobbins, mostly because I felt the need to spin in order to relax the interview nerves.  

After this conference, I can get into my next goals for spinning, which are to explore this new flyer more, and to try out different types of fiber.  As I think I hinted before, I bought a whole lotta different fiber at SAFF, and a measly amount of sock yarn, comparatively speaking: 

For the fiber, there's merino, merino-silk blends, alpaca, alpaca-wool blends, mohair and blends - not all of it is in that picture; some of it Coffeboy has, um, stashed away for all the various events of December (birthday and holidays).  I tried to go for a range of multicolored and more solid-colored fiber, too, but gave myself free range to indulge the blues.  That big giant bag is about 30 oz. of fiber, hopefully way more than enough to make a sweater for Coffeeboy (I decided to err on the generous side).  I might have chosen badly; the color looked so perfect for him but the fiber was made up of "little bits" rather than anything more official or "nice."   It felt nice, though, and like it would draft well, so I decided to go for it. We shall see. 

The sock yarn includes two skeins from Miss Babs, and one in "Sea Silk" from the Sanguine Gryphon - yum! 

Since I have to get up in a few hours to make it to the airport, though, I'm going to have to leave this post with that oh-so-tantalizing image of fiber fun to come.  Wish me luck with the interview, Coffeeboy too, and all our friends who also have interviews!