Good morning – Aunt Geri here.  Yesterday was the perfect day for spinning – snowy, windy, and cold!  I grabbed the opportunity to finish the Chimayo singles and ply them together.  This produced a warm, rustic yarn that is a 3-ply sport weight. It has a slightly “tweedy” texture and a lovely sheen from the silk.  This yarn actually turned out almost exactly as I anticipated.

Many thanks to Marcello, whose fiber made this possible – this yarn is my absolute favorite of all that I have spun!  Well, truthfully I don’t have a lot to choose from since I have only been spinning for a year.  But marling could easily become my signature yarn – I really enjoy blending the colors without the “candy cane” effect.  I have already started more Chimayo singles, which I will continue to spin until I run out of the silk blend roving.

Plying is very relaxing; I usually watch the birds, since I don’t need to look at the spinning wheel. You can see my view of the birds from the feeder – mostly house finches, gray-crowned rosy finches, chickadees, juncos, and occasionally magpies and crows.  The second picture shows the pending invasion of red-winged blackbirds – it’s like a Hitchcock movie!  We have never had them visit before and the flock is huge!

It must be the warming trend – HA!  It was 12 below zero this morning………………

(Editor’s note: Kirstin here, just sharing an interesting factoid. Red-winged blackbirds are insect eaters who live in the relatively uncommon wetlands of the American west. As they don’t eat seeds, they really were just visiting Aunt Geri, probably for the lovely river habitat. Male red-winged blackbirds are fiercely territorial during the summer, but un-matched males congregate in large flocks like the one above year round.)