This week I’ve found myself between projects, with no particular idea of what’s coming next. I’ve tried casting on three things, with three different yarns, but none of them has quite worked out. I have quite a lot of yarn, but nothing is really jumping out at me right now.

Fortunately, it’s not true that I’m completely between projects yet. The Briar Rose sweater is still awaiting its second sleeve, and I very much wanted to work on it on the train this week. It wasn’t at a transportable stage yet, though, so I had to go without. I finally sat down and pushed through the (very tiny) hump that needed to be knit first, and it’s now ready to go for this week. So, that will keep me busy for at least a few days more.

The Mike sweater is finished, blocked, and returned:

…and now fits much better than before. (It’s even a titch on the long side, which I understand is a good thing.)

Last weekend, in lieu of another project to knit, I played around a bit with my spinning wheel. I took some of the wool I blended on Elaine’s drum carder last spring, and a cone of cotton from the weaving shelf.

And I spun up a little corespun.

I learned to spin corespun a couple of years ago at the Madison spinners’ guild, and was surprised at how much I liked it. I’m not usually much into art yarn, but this is one technique that stood out to me as possibly very useful. For something.

I’m not sure what it will be useful for yet, but I put it on the back burner to think about another time, and lately it’s been jumping up and down, begging for attention. It’s a great way to get a very light, lofty single without using a lot of fiber, and it spins up very quickly. It’s a very strong single, because the “core” is there to give it strength. I have no idea what I’ll do with this tiny skein (I got about 40 yards), but it was a fun experiment to play with for an hour or two. It’s a completely different way of spinning, and it took quite a while to get my hands to cooperate with what my brain was telling them, but I got the hang of it in the end.

This weekend, I’ve been spinning up another bobbin for Branden’s next handspun sweater.

I am thinking that this will be the default next project, if nothing else comes along and grabs my fancy in the next week or so. I was hoping for something quick in between, but if nothing pops up I might head straight into this one.  I have about 6 bobbins worth of spinning left to do for it, though, so I’ll need to hurry up if I’m hoping to be ready in a week or two. I guess I’d better get back to spinning!