Spin Me Right Round

So here are my little skeins of handspun, my very first ones. I finished plying over the weekend (note to self: investigate lazy kates with tension). This is how my kids line up their treasures (which, depending on the day, might be train engines, or Kapla blocks, or dice, or little plastic rocket ships, or any number of precious items). Don't you just want to squeeze them? I have about 215 yards in all (but really, I have 175 yards of 2-ply and nearly 40 yards of 3-ply). I might not want to mix them. Then again, they are so uneven that I really don't think mixing them would cause a gauge problem.

And... should I dye them? I could reprise the Kool-Aid Casserole project of 2006 (ably blogged by Steven). I figure there's a hat in there.

I could, of course, just save the first handspun as an artifact, as many people do. Or, I could mail it to Steven (he mailed me his first knitted swatch, which is made out of a super unattractive shade of aqua - I'd photograph it but it's rainy outside just now).

In other spinning news, look at this beautiful spindle that Anne sent me!

Anne is a GC grad who used to work in our library... now she's a librarian herself. We didn't really connect as knitters when she lived here - I think it was before I was such a ravenous knitter, and it was definitely before she knew how to spin. I bumped into her at MDSW a few months ago and she was shopping for a wheel that day. Little did I know I'd be following so close behind. This spindle has a carved vine twining its way up the shaft, and the whorl looks like a flower. I haven't mustered the courage to spin the beautiful fiber sample she included. I'm supposed to bring the spindle to my next spinning lesson and we'll give it a whirl.

If Kelley Petkun can spindle during meetings, will I be far behind?
(Update on the work sock soon... I'm an hour or two from finishing the pair.)