spin spin spin
Wrist tendonitis means I can't knit? Time for some spinning. I'm halfway through the lovely soft grey qiviut-alpaca-merino blend, but lace weight spinning takes forever and it's a lot of looking at a soothing restful grey color. So I set that first bobbin aside and decided to play with other stuff, in brighter colors.
So today I spun up a 4-ounce "Guardians of Water" hank of handpainted roving in some unidentified wool that I got from Carolina Homespun at OFFF as one of my freebies when I got my wheel. It's a colorway that boojum refers to as "alien spit on Caribbean beaches." Some turquoisey blues, some chartreuse. Bit of some deeper blues as well. I spun fairly thick and bumpy singles, at least for me. Which means the single is roughly fingering weight with some bumps up to sport or DK. Filled up a bobbin and thought about plying. And thought some more. And decided it needed to be plied with something else. Which would also give me enough for a more substantial project. But what?
I decided it needed to be plied with white, for a fresh summery kind of look. But not just any white. No, this white needs to be shiny, possibly even sparkly. Hm. Time for fun with handcards! I pulled out some BFL, some tussah, and some crystal AB angelina. I'm going for a very rough and streaky blend. I loaded up the cards with a reasonable amount of wool, made a batt, which I spread out to double width. Lay on a thin layer of silk. Sprinkle pinches of angelina on half of it, fold it up, load it back on the card and transfer it to the other card. Declare it good enough and make a rolag. Repeat. Yeah, it's kind of time-consuming in that I have my wool divided into nine armlengths, each of which makes 4 rolags. Perhaps I will go to kathrynt's place and beg some time on her drum carder. However, after making the first 4 rolags, I spun up two of them, and I am completely in love with my yarn already. Am I going to be able to bear to ply it with the alien spit? Stay tuned!
So today I spun up a 4-ounce "Guardians of Water" hank of handpainted roving in some unidentified wool that I got from Carolina Homespun at OFFF as one of my freebies when I got my wheel. It's a colorway that boojum refers to as "alien spit on Caribbean beaches." Some turquoisey blues, some chartreuse. Bit of some deeper blues as well. I spun fairly thick and bumpy singles, at least for me. Which means the single is roughly fingering weight with some bumps up to sport or DK. Filled up a bobbin and thought about plying. And thought some more. And decided it needed to be plied with something else. Which would also give me enough for a more substantial project. But what?
I decided it needed to be plied with white, for a fresh summery kind of look. But not just any white. No, this white needs to be shiny, possibly even sparkly. Hm. Time for fun with handcards! I pulled out some BFL, some tussah, and some crystal AB angelina. I'm going for a very rough and streaky blend. I loaded up the cards with a reasonable amount of wool, made a batt, which I spread out to double width. Lay on a thin layer of silk. Sprinkle pinches of angelina on half of it, fold it up, load it back on the card and transfer it to the other card. Declare it good enough and make a rolag. Repeat. Yeah, it's kind of time-consuming in that I have my wool divided into nine armlengths, each of which makes 4 rolags. Perhaps I will go to kathrynt's place and beg some time on her drum carder. However, after making the first 4 rolags, I spun up two of them, and I am completely in love with my yarn already. Am I going to be able to bear to ply it with the alien spit? Stay tuned!