I thought I had really hit the jackpot when I found the World’s Most Perfect Yarn: Numma Numma Doppio. It’s incredibly soft, yet also very sturdy; great to knit with, and it smells wonderful. 70% superwash merino, 20% cashmere, 10% nylon. It’s not only almost impossible to get because it sells out in a matter of seconds, but it was recently announced that Numma Numma would be on haitus until next year. Well, crap. Now what am I going to do?

nummaswmerino

Make my own, that’s what. I dyed up some superwash merino in this nice, uneven gray-blue color and mixed it with undyed cashmere & nylon. I ran it through the carder twice to blend the fibers a bit more evenly but still retain some color separation so the yarn will have a heathered coloring. I’ve got 5 ounces in this color and 5 more in natural ecru (which was MUCH harder to card, because undyed fibers don’t like to stick to carder teeth). I can’t decide if I should spin each one into 2 balls for a couple pairs of socks, alternate colors and navajo ply for a striped yarn, or spin each separately and ply them together.

nummabatt 

I am also debating on whether the time has finally come to (temporarily) remove my chunky flyer from the traveller and put the normal sized one on. My last attempt at making a sock-weight yarn was FAIL and it ended up being super-duper chunky despite me spinning thinner than I ever have before. Here is the resulting pair of slippers, which are comfy but a bit too warm to wear much in Texas:

handspunslippers2

Oh my gosh, right as I was typing those words, I realized that my feet are freezing and I went to put them on. Ahhhh… I love merino. I’m going to sleep with these on …for approximately 13 minutes, at which point I will realize that my feet are boiling hot, I’ll throw them off carelessly and they’ll be carried away by a cat, who will gnaw them to a pulp overnight. Talk about a rockin’ Friday night.