Spinning - my first 'Art Yarn'

Pic. 1  The two finished singles on my old Haldand castle wheel, single treadle, double drive.

Pic. 2  The two bobbins close up, the purple is a mix of purple, pink and turquoise merino, combed with silk.

The turquoise bobbin is again a mix of merino and silk.

Pic. 3  Good planning, more by luck than judgement......The purple yarn is more slubby and I tried to estimate the amount of turquoise, in the end I just spun what I had carded and hoped for the best.  I had a yard left, which I used to tie the skein on the kniddy knoddy.

Pic. 4  The very full bobbin. Just had enough space on he bobbin after I plied the singles together....!!  Only just.

The skein is still on the kinddy knoddy at the moment, I will wash it and beat it before I go to bed and it will dry on the Rayburn - these was 100 yards in total plied, not as much as I had hoped for but as a beginner it is really difficult to estimate how much yarn I will make.  I have checked on ravelry http://ravelry.com for patterns for 100 yards of bulky and I have seen a neckwarmer I could adapt a little.  The purple and silk I have blogged about previously on here (see archives), was a similar amount but it was not enough to even make a hat, so I compromised and used up some scrap fluffy acrylic in a toning purple, now I have a pixie hat with ear flaps - photo to follow.

Have you had a look at the You Tube video in the right column of links yet?  It seems such an easy way to put beads into yarn that I am going to try this, probably my next project.  In fact I am unfortunately on my own at the moment as we had an urgent call from our new neighbours about an hour ago, her husband had been taken to Narbonne hospital by the pompiers (firemen and emergency service) this morning, with complete kidney failure and has since been transferred to Perpignan, so my husband has taken her to Perpignan, about an hour and a half from here.  So I will be sitting up waiting for them to get back, I have made up a bed for the neighbour in case she does not want to be on her own in her own house.  So while I am waiting I will be threading beads on to little pieces of wool roving.