Jexxican, you could work with the plastic as is, but spinning it seems to make it substantially stronger.  I'm a little bit in awe of the bag I'm working on.  I think it'll hold a fair amount of weight.

Gorgeous yarn everyone.  Angry Hippie, I've just moved into a new apartment and your photos really make me want to unpack and set up my photography equipment.  The yarn and the quality of the photos are both fabulous.

I'm a new spinner...I've only really done 8oz of brown shetland.  I have, however, been spinning plastic bags this week.  I'm working on making reusable shopping bags from disposable one.  So far it is taking way more disposable bags than I would have anticipated.  I've spun ten disposable bags and am only 1/3 of the way through my reusable bag.  I don't have enough posts yet to post photos, but I have photos of the spun plastic on my blog.




Thanks for sharing everyone.  You are all an inspiration to this newbie!

I've almost got it, but I'm triple twisting the knit stitch.  I found the instructions for dtp from the book online and that one was easy enough.  Once I figure out where the extra twist is coming from, I'm make up a video and link you to it.

ETA: Alright...I'm pretty sure I've got it.  Here's a link to the video.  I hope it helps!

I can't find any good videos either.  If you send me the instructions from the book I can try to work it out and come up with something for you.

Kfree, be careful!  I've only been at it for a week and I'm already addicted.  My half pound of roving is all spun up and some of it has turned into a hat.  Three more pounds are ordered though, so my fiber fix will soon be placated.

In the mean time, I've been spinning plastic bags.  I had the thought that it would be neat to turn disposable shopping bags into reusable ones.  I've spun up two balls of single-ply plastic, each made of five bags.  Right now I'm plying them in order to make them stronger.  Next step will be a simple netted bag using my size thirteen circular needle.  Photos of it will be coming to my blog when it's finished.

If you're desperate for fiber, the plastic bags have been really easy to spin up and I feel like I'm getting more of a feel for when I'm over spinning with them.  All I did for prep was to cut the handles and bottoms off of each bag and then cut them horizontally in strips about an inch wide.  The strips end up being loops and I just string them together with slip knots.  The tighter the slip knot is, the nicer the finished thread ends up looking.

I can't wait until you get yourself set up...another new fiber junkie is a very exciting thought.  Post back when you're spinning!

I finally picked up a spindle and eight ounces of beautiful brown Shetland roving on Monday.  I'm now looking at my last two ounces of unspun roving and wishing it wasn't an hour drive to the fiber store.

The biggest surprise for me has been drafting...I thought the spinning would be the tricky bit, but drafting with consistent results results has definitely been harder.  I quartered the roving and the first quarter was really thick and thin, but the next two were a lot nicer looking.  I've started a hat with the first quarter as the band and I'm happy  the results.  It looks a lot more even knitted up.  I figure the more evenly spun yarn will be nice for the body of the hat.

I'm sure I'm not the only new spinner around.  Any others want to come out of the woodwork and share how their new obsession is going?

I wasn't going to post, but I had to because the pile of yarn in my lap right now looks remarkably like the yarn you're using for the blanket, except my yarn is actually that color gray.  I'm working on a raglan sweater from knitty.com's sweater design article.  It's my third sweater made using it and I'm completely hooked on it.  Luckily, I'm friends with someone who operates a small gift shop.  He keeps me in yarn, I keep him in sweaters.  It's a good deal for someone who always wants something on her needles.  Anywho, enough talk.  Time for photos.  I cast off today and am trying to convince myself to work on all of the boring finishing tasks.

EDIT-I'm new here, so I can only link to pictures for right now.  Here are the links:

Picture of my almost done sweater.
Close-up of a cabling.

The photos were taken at different times, but I wanted to include the second one because it shows the large lattice detail well.  There's also a smaller one a couple of inches above it that just has the four center bars cross over.  The second lattice was an afterthought...I accidentally made the bottom one too low and I needed something to balance the sweater a little differently.  I'm happy enough with how it turned out though.  

Now I just need to get back to the boring bits of knitting...weaving in loose threads and blocking.  Blech.  I have some very pretty cream colored wool that's calling to me, but I can't do anything with that until I finish the grey sweater, otherwise the finishing will never get done.