I left off with the
silk all spun, skeined, and ready to dye. Tied off the skein, dug up
my big dye pot, and successfully dyed it pretty close to the same red
as in my sample.
I have a niddy
noddy and a small windmill skeinwinder to skein yarn directly from
the bobbin. What I don't have is an umbrella type swift for going the
other direction, back on the bobbin or into a ball. (That's on the
must get list for this year.) I decided to fiddle with my windmill
skeinwinder to hold my silk while I rewound it.
Since I don't have a
way to mount it horizonatlly, I decided to find a way to keep the
yarn from pulling off the open dowels. I carefully fit the skein
onto the winder, then stepped out of the room to get some large
rubber bands. I should have done it the other way round.
Unknown to me, Jelly
Bean had been oberving me from under the loom. When I stepped away,
she decided to investigate. When I returned, she was on my work table. She jumped down and
scooted, her body low-slung, and rolled innocently on the hearth
rug. I knew what that meant. Even before I saw the consequences. My
heart leapt into my throat in dread.
Yes. The infamous cat tangle. I cried. Of course, I cried. My yards and yards of silk
carefully (if imperfectly) spun as finely as I could manage. Half
on and half off the skeinwinder, the thrill of it all to much for my
cat to resist: thread must be tangled. And tangled it was.
The shock undid me. I despaired of being able to untangle such fine thread. I couldn't even take a photo of it. But I
couldn't just throw it away. I couldn't. I just couldn't. So I put
the rubber bands in place to hold what remained, covered the whole
thing, and for a week pretended it didn't exist. I worked in my
garden.
Then it got muggy
and started raining and thundering. I braced myself, uncovered the
silk, picked up my bobbin, and tentatively picked at the mass on the
table. An opening appeared. I picked a little more, careful to
only lift and loosen, never to pull. An end appeared! I am joyful.
Carefully I traced the end through the tangle, and opened it enough
to get the bobbin through. I did it again, winding the inches on the
bobbin as I went, careful, careful not to pull anything tight. I did
a little at a time, then retreated to read, to do research on the
computer, to sweep floors or do dishes. At the end of the day,
there wasn't much on the bobbin, but there were openings in the
tangle, and I had hope. 
It took a week, a
little at a time, until one day I could see the tangle begin to
disappear.
And the next day it
did disappear, and all my lovely red silk was on the bobbin. And I'm still hoping it is enough to ply with all of the wool/mohair. It looks so puny next to the those spools.
But my mind has not
recovered from the shock and the intense effort of rescuing my silk. I am not ready to
ply yet. I need to clear my mind.
I have always known
that the day would come when I would no longer be satisfied with just
the four wood bobbins (and now one jumbo plying bobbin) I have, and
would need storage bobbins. The day came while I was untangling,
knowing I would not be plying right away.
So I went online in search
of inexpensive storage bobbins. I looked at several, some made of
cardboard, something like heavyweight ribbon holders, others made of
plastic, sturdier looking.
I ordered the color set*, and two days later the box arrived.
And here's my silk, all wound on. It's fun again.
And now I am happily
spinning some delicious polypay roving that a friend had space-dyed.
Aren't I lucky?
* The bobbins are manufactured and sold by artUwear and may also be available at other outlets.
