Holy Batt, Man!

So, last night my son and I had a Mexican stand-off which I easily won and then I couldn't sleep.

While I could have worked on my Tangled Yoke cardigan, I decided that because of my inability to finish anything I make for myself in a timely fashion, now would be a good time to pause the sweater and take on something different.

I spotted a batt I purchased a couple of months ago in the cabinet nearest to my spinning wheel. Sure, I'll spin that. I've been dying to spin a batt for awhile and now (it was 10pm) was as good a time as any. So, I took this batt (merino with bits of silk and mohair) that I purchased from etsy.com:



Drafted it the was I was instructed (by a video on You Tube), like this:



And it became this:


Not bad, but not at all what I expected. It's cute and everything, but my first batt should have been something smoother. It had so many clumps of silk that didn't draft as much as they shredded, and allowing a 'chunk' past my fingers was HARD! Stop, go, stop, go. That's how it went for 90 minutes.

It's alright - but I need advice. How does anyone (out there in blogland) deal with the bits? Do I pull them apart and spread them out? Some of the clumps were huge and didn't draft well. I shredded some of them, but there were so many!

Anyway, I'm not sure what I can make with it because it's such a small amount of yarn, but I was told that if I let it sit for about a week, I can practically knit it off the spool, so that's my plan.

OK, I can take the pause off my sweater and get back to work. I'm in kind of a hurry now since I have to start my holiday knitting next month. (Yikes!)

Happy New Year everyone!