plying

Skein 5 – Pink Party!

underdutchskies2 Comments

Remember this ball of merino/nylon I bought back in September?  It’s from Fondant Fibre in the UK.

I started spinning it in September and then it got set aside while I worked on some other spinning and knitting projects.  I picked it up again 2 weeks ago and finished it off.

Here are the 2 bobbins of singles.

I had started spinning this back before I was making lace weight singles.  Coming back to it after 2 months meant that I had learned better technique in that time and wished that I had actually started this thinner.  It was not easy to match the same thickness of the single after so long and forgetting what I was doing in the first place.  This is something I need to remember for future projects, at least while I’m learning and EVERY spinning project is something completely new and different.  Finish what you start in pretty quick order or you will forget what you were doing and how the spinning felt in your hands!

Anyway, I pretty quickly finished the second half of the 120g ball.  The fiber is super soft and was prepared very well.  It really flowed through my hands like water. I wanted to keep it fairly thin so that I could maximize the yardage so I 2-plied it.  It came out like this:

Now, notice that there is no white in this skein while there was white in the fiber? Well, when I dropped the skein into hot soapy water to soak, so much dark pink dye came out that the water turned that color immediately.  I left it alone to soak until the water cooled off and then hung it to dry.  The dye colored the white fiber a light pink.  I don’t mind.  It’s still really nice and there’s less of a barber pole effect now.  But this is something I’ll keep in mind next time and I’ll also let the seller know what happened.

The resulting yarn is about a sport weight – 300 meters to 100g.  I have 116 grams (from a 120g ball of fiber).  I think I’ll make a really simple scarf out of it.  It’s so very soft and bouncy and will feel really nice next to the skin.  I have to hold myself back from casting on right NOW!  But first I have to finish some other knitting….

Close but not quite – Skeins 3 & 4

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Remember this fiber I bought in September?  Merino and silk.

I spun it up into a heavier than lace single and then cable plied it and now I’m making mittens!

I’m really happy with the yarn.  It was my first time cable plying and actually this is only my 3rd skein of yarn EVER.  I worked really hard to finish spinning it before my last business trip so I could take the yarn with me as a travel project.  This is as far as I’ve gotten since other home-bound projects have taken over my time.  I expect I’ll pick them up and finish the mittens before Christmas.

Now, I had also bought the lighter colored sister of this fiber, also in September.  This..

I started spinning this in September and finished spinning the single in October.  I went for lace weight and did really well at making lace weight singles.

I decided to do a 2 ply. Here is the skein with also a tiny little bit of chain ply with the leftovers from one bobbin.

I have to say, this is not as nice as I was hoping for.  The chain plied bit I like a lot, but the 2 ply is just kind of blah.  Boring.  The colors blended together into this kind of flesh toned boring thing.  AND the ply is too loose.  The only positive thing about it is that I’ve proven that I can make lace weight yarn. 🙂

I have thought a lot about what to do with this skein.  I could run it through the wheel again making a tighter ply.  I think I’d like it better then.  But that means I have to wind it either into a ball or onto a bobbin first and we’re taking 800+ meters/yards of very thin yarn. Not fun.  And that doesn’t solve the boring color.

OR I could do the above AND over dye it an interesting color.

Or I could just use it for further spinning practice by running it through the wheel again and over spinning the 2 ply a bit and then turning THAT into a 4 ply, just for practice.

OR I could just chalk it up to experience and set it aside and move on to something else fun and interesting to spin.  Life is short….