Anna's First Crochet Hook

Anna wanted to help Steven and I work today, but she's only 2 1/2, way too little to help. So Steven went out to the shop, got a piece of wood dowel, and cut the end into a really nice crochet hook shape.

I gave her a piece of string short enough so she wouldn't get hurt, and let her have at it.

Here's the covertly taken photo of her trying to make it work :)

I see lots of yarn in her future!!

Handspinning yarn...

So a few months ago, when I had some money (I miss that, unemployed sucks, even worse when you can't get unemployment, but that's another discussion), I decided I was going to learn to spin yarn.

 I bought this drop spindle:
top-whorl-drop-spindle-double-whorl

And this roving:
domestic-56-wool-roving-8-oz

I used the spindle to do my handplied yarns, but the roving sat unused until a couple days ago.

 I'm not going to post a tutorial on how to do it, because there are a bazillion other tutorials out there and I watched many of them. But here is the finished product!

Before plying with thread

The finished yarn, 36 yards of wooly goodness!