Unwinding

Well!  Do I have something to write about today!  So, as promised, I started a new project on Saturday night with a new yarn I had not used before.  It is a beautifully soft, vibrantly colored lace weight silk (and for those of you who don't speak yarn, the lace weight means it is a really think yarn, more like string, I think).  And it comes in these adorable, artsy skeins.  They're all wound and twisted in really cool ways to make them look really pretty. (Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of the pretty version.)  But, when you untwirl the contraption, it's just a big circle of yarn.  So, I find the end and start pulling the string out thinking, "how hard can it be?"  Oh how wrong I was!!!  I have spent hours untangling that awful mess, and it's still not done.  I sat at my kitchen table pulling one little tiny string out of endless knots so long that my back and eyes ached from the concentration.  I wanted to make this scarf a little wider for some variety, but eventually I settled for six inches wide because I couldn't handle it anymore.  Besides the fact that my husband and I have been eating on tv trays on the couch for a day and a half because my half warped loom was taking up the entire kitchen table and half the living room.  (FYI: I warp my loom with a warping peg which means that I thread the yarn right onto the loom, and if I want to have a scarf that's eight feet long, I have to put my warping peg eight feet away from the loom.  And it has to stay there until the loom is totally warped.  So that means that this project was taking up 8+ feet in my living room and kitchen for almost two days!!!)  Anyway, here is photo #1.  This is the leftover yarn from the skein I spent hours untangling.  And there's still plenty there waiting to be untangled!!!

So, as soon as I finished warping, I decided that there has GOT to be a better way!  And since I'm using a different color for my weft (the cross-wise weaving), I still had another skein to unwind, and I did not want to repeat that awful process.  So, I began scouring the internet for a neat way to unwind skeins.  And of course, oh so helpfully, I found a skein unwinder machine thing that I can purchase for... wait for it... $215!!!  Um, YEAH RIGHT!  So, I got a good look at the contraption and started wandering around my apartment for a way I could home-make a system like that.  I also found another website that explained how to prep a skein to be unwound.  So, I put this new knowledge to use, tried to think like my dad, and I MADE MY OWN!!!  Yeah, it is VERY simple and archaic, but it worked like a charm!

I used two of my kitchen chairs, my warping peg and clamp, a work clamp my husband happened to have lying around, and a wooden kitchen spoon.  My dad would be so proud!  ;)  And, in less than 45 minutes, I had unwound the entire 480 yards of yarn from the skein to my own cone!  I knew I had kept a couple of empty cones for a reason!

And hey, it's not pretty, but it is completely functional!  And it is a million times better than untangling that awful, terrible mess that I made of the other skein.  I was THRILLED!

So, this evening I began weaving the project, and I think I'm gonna like it.  It will be hard not to like with this amazing new yarn!  I have only worked with acrylic, cotton, wool, and the bamboo blend yarn so far, so 100% silk is a big step up (in both quality and price.  Yikes!)  So, I'm excited.

Well, that's all I have to report on right now!  I will definitely post a sneak peek photo of the new scarf when I get a little farther along!  Here's to a new week coming up and here's hoping for some GREAT weather this week!

Random: I'm pretty sure that no one will get this but my husband, but since he's the only one who really reads this thing it won't matter.  I threw in that "Top Gear" reference just for you honey!