Fork it?

 

This is what I was doing while I watched a movie with the kids and Abi's friend. I had spun yarn to knit my mom a scarf (no surprise, if she managed to find her way here without a direct link from me, she knows I am working on a scarf because she requested it). When I began knitting (reversible cabled brioche), I realized the yarn was more firm than I would have liked it to be. Of course, I kept knitting. Half finished, I finally listened to the voices in my head and stopped knitting. Set it aside. Where I ignored it for months and months. A few days ago, I frogged the scarf and ran the yarn back through the wheel to loosen the plying twist. And then I washed it. And then I threw it--still wet merino/alpaca blend--in the dryer, on air fluff.

In case you missed this,

I. THREW. IT. IN. THE. DRYER.

Over six ounces of handspun, 3-ply, merino/alpaca yarn.

I wanted to fluff it.

OK, so it did fluff it up a bit, just as I wanted. But it also felted a bit. Not the whole yarn, just black fibers throughout the entire (gray) yarn. So now I am untwisting the yarn, peeling apart the sticky black fibers to separate the plies and then adding back a softer twist. I was running the plies between my fingers to separate them but then I spotted Em's violin mute...

This would be even awesomer with one more finger. But a fork works perfect! And it's easier to take breaks than it is with yarn between my fingers.

I had to explain to Abi's friend (who spent the weekend with us and was excited to be shown the whole fleece-to-finished-object process, not knowing any other knitter/spinners) that normal people do not do such things. Y'all don't, right?