Christmas in July!

It feels like Christmas! =)

This is what came in the mail on Friday:

So... what goodies were in those boxes?

These:

Yep, I finally drank the Kool-Aid. I bought a Hansen minispinner!! I've been looking at these and travel spinning wheels for ages. Even the travel wheels I think would be too bulky for in the rv and I kept changing my mind. I've had one of these electric minispinners in my virtual cart multiple times and always took it back out... but not this time! lol I decided I was worth a splurge... and I don't regret it one little bit. I've already paid off the charges on my credit card so it's all good. =) I also bought a lazy kate to make plying yarn simpler. Yeah, I could rig something up, but if I'm splurging, I might as well get what I want, right? lol Every thing is very compact and fits well in the rv. I knew too that these resell for nearly as much as they go for new so I figured if I bought it and hated it, I could sell it again and get most of my money back.

Of course it showed up Friday while I was still fairly early in my work day. *sigh* So I left it all in the box. Since it's Tour de Fleece (running in conjunction with Tour de France, of course), many shops were offering sales so I then went off in search of some fiber to spin. The first package was to arrive Saturday, but I wanted to start on some less expensive fiber since I'm a complete newbie so I headed off to Paradise Fibers here in Spokane and bought some fiber. I can't say I was overly impressed with Paradise Fibers, but I got what I needed to get started. I opened the boxes when I got home and the spinner came with a small sample of the same fiber I bought, just in a different colorway.

After a few false starts (there's a learning curve here), I got going and spun up the sample:

Yeah, pretty much what I was expecting... overspun, underspun, thick and thin. LOL But I love it because I made yarn!! =)

So then I started on the fiber I bought:

A little better, but still pretty wonky.

I spun more on Sunday morning and things evened out a bit:

I think I might be a little underspun on a lot of this, but I'm finding my groove... and I love it!! I have 8oz of this fiber and plan to spin it on two bobbins so I can ply it together.

Once I get more consistent, I'll break into that awesome hand-dyed fiber I bought. =) I still need to get a bag to store it all in and I know the one I want, just deciding on a fabric. Now I just need my own sheep... or an alpaca. LOL