I just passed a major milestone.

No, not a major birthday. Although I did have a birthday a couple weeks ago. I passed a real mile. Of yarn.

Back on January 1st, Dave Daniels started the Spinning My Wheel project for himself. No prizes, no challenges, except to himself. Just Dave and his goals of improving his skills, expanding the varieties of yarns he can make, exploring color, and spinning miles of yarn.

Dave asked his readers to play along, and so I did. I got a spreadsheet from Dave, grabbed a button to put over there on the sidebar, and started spinning. I had several goals: spin a mile of yarn this year, spin enough for a sweater, improve my skills, and use up some of my stash. No disappointment for not reaching a goal and no prizes for attaining one, other that bragging rights.

Last week, after I finished that first big bobbin on the Lendrum and filled in the stats on my spreadsheet, I realized that I had passed one of my goals: I had spun a mile of yarn this year. WHOOO HOOO!

Then I started on the rest of that green roving and headed for the second goal. So this week, I made this:



Another bobbin full of green 2-ply. Wait, here's a better picture:



Would you look at the SIZE of that baby? That's a regular bobbin on the right, the plying bobbin holds a whopping 8 ounces. And that's the last of the bright green roving.

When I counted the rounds on the skein last week, I counted 340 rounds. So that's what I put on the spreadsheet. Tonight, I realized that my reel is 2 yards around. So that skein last week wasn't 340 yards; it was 680 yards! And, I had also entered the wrong yardage for the skein from the batts Barbara has sent me. So not only did I pass that first milestone, I BLEW WAY past it!

After correcting the spreadsheet, my count to date is 2,257 yards, or 6,771 feet which is 1.28 miles. Since all my yarn, so far, has been 2 plies of spun singles, that means I have spun 13,542 feet, or 2.56 miles of singles. Dudes, that some spinning!

And I also got my knitting mojo back again. Look:



I have begun knitting off the top edge of the bamboo shawl. There's no pattern for this; I just found a leafy lace pattern, started at the bottom and increased up to the top, making a 3-stitch garter on the edges. Now, I'm knitting off the top with a 3-stitch garter edge so it'll be as stretchy as the rest. Oh, and I figured out how to knit those 3 stitches backwards, so no turning. It's still a little awkward, but certainly faster that all that flipping around.



And Inspector 37 says it looks good, so far.