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Farewell, Depth of Field

Owning a local yarn shop is tough, the hours of work are long (classes have to be taught at night or weekends to accommodate working knitters), the margins are small and some knitters can be very sensitive about the type of service they expect or how quickly they will learn to knit and can write scathing reviews.

Depth of Field is a yarn shop I wrote about here in September 2017.  At that time it was clear the place could use some spiffing up, but the prices were so hard to beat.  This week Susan, my Minneapolis knit buddy, let me know that the shop will be closing in the near future, specifically December 1, 2018 despite being opened since 1938.  She also mentioned everything was half price and there was plenty of roving for spinning to pick from still among the stock.

Even though I have put a ban on purchases of roving or yarn for 2018 I made an exception.  One of my purchases made at Depth of Field is shown below:

Plymonth Yarn's Galway Super Chunky in Cabernet on the left and Dark Gray on the right.  I bought three of each color
My thought was this 100% Highland wool roving would be perfect for spinning.  There are 100 grams or approximately four ounces (54 feet as is) in each cake.  Beside these two colors being a couple of my very favorites the price was less than $4.65 per cake.  This makes for very affordable roving that should yield enough yarn for a shawl.  Once I have one cake plied it will become clearer how much yarn I will actually be creating.

 This morning I got out my wheel to check on the theory that it would be simple to spin.  As you can see from the photo below the staple has barely been spun and in the store a quick test of the draft gave me confidence it would spin up just fine.


And it has spun up like a dream.  Once the drafting was started the long draw worked rather nicely.  So I am taking that super chunky yarn and turning it into a fine yarn that will eventually be double plied.  A nice plus I found as I spun is that it is heathered (had I looked it up online I would have known this).  There are spats of light and dark grey as well as a smattering of charcoal colors throughout.  

The chunky vs. the spun light-weight
As the spinning began and the heather is showing
Perhaps some of the most observant among you noticed something in the picture above.  If not, let me point it out.  See the little teeth marks on either side of the whirl?  (near the top left and right of the photo)  As I looked on I also found this:


Seems someone is having fun with my spinning wheel and I know just who it is.  Miss Mara has been found hiding under the light weight throw used to keep dust off the wheel.  It does sit in my living room and I suspect overnight or while I've been away, Mara has decided to leave her mark. I'm going to need to find a more cat-proof way to store the spinning wheel.  It doesn't have to be pristine, but there's no need for these little gnaw marks either.  

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