(Dammit… blurry again. Sorry!)

I ended up with about 18 wpi, so we’re looking at a fingering/sport weight on average. There are thicker and thinner spots, but that’s a pretty good estimate.

This hank is 48g, so it’s about 40% of the hankies. It came to about 114 yards of three-ply, so I’m hoping that if I can continue at this weight I will end up with about 250-260 yards total. Not exactly enough for Tuscany, which was my dream for this, but realistically, I didn’t have anywhere near enough weight to start with to even attempt that.

I’m really pretty thrilled with it, though – it will end up being something lacy and lovely, even if I don’t know what just yet.

A few people asked me how you turn silk hankies into yarn, and I’ll be happy to have Kris take some pictures if you’d like, but I learned from Amyknitty’s article. The only difference is that she’s clearly more patient than I am and uses a drop spindle, where I’m spinning them on a wheel.

And once again, I am going to demonstrate my adoration of the lovely Penny Karma. She recently posted about doing some retail therapy, and that her usual purchase in those times of need is lip gloss. She felt that the 17 glosses in her purse perhaps meant that she needed to branch out. I felt that 17 was a perfectly reasonable number to carry in one’s purse, and I now endeavor to show her what TRUE lip gloss junkiehood looks like.

This is what’s in my purse right now:

There are 16 of them (16 if you count the double-ended one as two, but we won’t go there), including what I think is every available color of Burt’s Bees Lip Shimmer (Thank you Cristi, Ali, and Roxy for causing that particular addiction). The two Clinique ones on the right? Are the same color – Black Honey. One is a sample (Thank you, Sephora), and then I bought the full-sized one and put it in there, forgetting that the sample was already in there.

Next, let’s look at my dresser.

Here, we have an in-the-wild sighting of some Bath & Body Works “Wet Your Whistle”. This is my daily lip moisturizer – it goes on at the same time as the divine nectar in the jars behind it – Philosophy’s Hope in a Jar. Hands down the best facial moisturizer I’ve EVER used, and now it has SPF 20 in it! Yay! (This brings the count up to 17, btw.)

Inside the makeup drawer (Yes, I have a makeup drawer. Don’t judge me.), we have these lovely little organizers from Ikea. This one has the more color-based lip stuff, and the stuff I use most often (Some of these are lipsticks or liners, not glosses, so they don’t count)…

And this one is the more “pure flavor” or “pure shine” bin.

And because I KNOW you want to get a better look at what’s in them…

From the top left, we have the one and only Dior thing I will EVER own, two tins of three each flavored glosses from on10, another two-ended gloss from Bath & Body Works with one from Tarte, three Urban Decay Lip Gunks (sadly, the don’t make it like this any more) one tube of UD Ultraglide (which replaced the Lip Gunk but isn’t quite the same), an UD XXX Shine, three tubes of DuWop Lip Venom (The pink shimmery one in the little case was a giftie from Roxy). In the second row, we have 4 full-sized and 7 mini Buxom Lips glosses from Bare Escentuals, three full-sized and one mini BE lip glosses, and one BE Lip Guard for a total of 33 in that bin, and a grand total of 50 thus far. The sad thing? The one thing I am wondering is where the silver shimmer Lip Venom is, since the regular and the gold and pink shimmers are here, but I didn’t find the silver…

Again, starting top left, a Sephora Round-A-Pout, some incredibly ancient flavored glosses, a couple of random freebie samples of various and sundry, and 7 flavored glosses from Bath & Body Works. Next, 4 different flavors of BB&W Liplicious, 8 mini and 2 full-sized Urban Decay XXX Shines, and 11 flavored glosses from The Body Shop. That’s another 44, for a total of NINETY-FOUR different lip glosses. And I know for a fact that there is at least one other roaming around here, because my B&BW Mentha Lip Shine is in my knitting bag.

Yeah, I think there may be some level of obsession going on around here. I should really probably clean out those bins…

It’s really, really thin, and I know I’m going to ply it. I just haven’t decided if it’s going to be a 2- or 3-ply. What I’m hoping is that I can get it to a good weight and enough yardage to make a good-sized Tuscany shawl. I figure that’s an appropriate choice, since Amyknitty dyed the hankies and designed the pattern.

Mmmm… blurry silk closeup.  (Obviously, I took this one, not Kris)

I’ve still got, erm, a bit to spin yet, though. About 87 grams worth. I started with 112 g (per Amy’s post.  Glad she weighed it, since I never remembered to), so I’m around 1/3 of the way through. I have NO idea if I’m going to finish this up by the end of the TdF, but I really hope I can.

In knitting news, I’ve made a little more progress on the February Lady Sweater. I was hoping I might be able to have it done for EdFest next weekend, but I’m thinking that’s not going to happen. I’ve got 4″ of the lace pattern so far, and I’m aiming for 12″ once its done, including the bottom edging. So, it may still be going with me, just not as a completed project.

And why, pray tell, am I titling my blog post in French? Because I’ve decided to enter the Tour de Fleece!  I’m signing on as a rookie, because I still feel like a major beginner in my spinning.  I’m going to work on finishing the silk hankies I started a few weeks ago to start with.  I’m hoping to get them done and then possibly tackle some BMFA merino-tencel roving I’ve had since MD Sheep and Wool ’06 (*blush*).  We’ll be out of town for a few days, so to keep up, I’m going to take my drop spindle and the blue Gale’s Art roving I’ve been working on.

Wish me luck!  I’m hoping to use this as an opportunity to really improve my spinning.