The Coopworth is done!

I've been spinning the rest of the 8 oz bag of Coopworth for the past week or so. Last night I was able to ply it. Plying is a dream on the Ladybug! In fact, after I had been plying for at least 30 minutes, Sharon asked when I would be done with the spinning. Without the cursing and whining that always accompanied plying on the Traveller, she had no idea I was already at that stage. I stand by the tensioned kate - it is GREAT.

Then I realized that ... I don't have a niddy noddy to wind the finished yarn onto. I borrowed the other one from Gail and returned it when I returned the Traveller. Hmmm, what to do? A-ha! I made a makeshift niddy noddy from my son's PVC pipe collection (he got a box of pipes and connectors for his last birthday - homemade tinker toys). It worked like a dream!



When you take finished yarn off the niddy noddy and hold it up, the big loop is not supposed to twist. That means that the spin you put into the singles is balanced by the opposite spin you added during plying. For the first time, my big loop had NO TWIST AT ALL. Hooray! Here's the big loop hanging on the sock yarn cabinet (sure, I'll flash my stash).













The finished 3-ply yarn weighs 110 g (3.9 oz) and measures 129.5 yards. The last half yielded 114 grames and 132 yards, so they are pretty even.

I think I should knit with this yarn very soon. I don't want to save all the handspun for months and months, and then knit with it only to find that I should have spun something differently.

This isn't my very first handspun, but it's my first competent handspun, and it deserves something special. I'm thinking Jared Flood's Habitat hat (Ravel it). What do you think? It calls for 120-140 yards of worsted weight yarn, so I should be fine.

Or... I could use this for another Jared Flood hat, Koolhaus (named after the architect who designed the Seattle Public Library) (Ravel it). I'm planning to attend the ACRL (that's Association of College & Research Libraries) conference in Seattle in March, and I figured I should knit the Koolhaus before I visit the Koolhaus. Yes? Who's with me?