Something pretty

In case my experiment didn't interest you, I thought I'd share some pretty pictures of my latest spinning escapades.

First, I'll start with the burgundy Corriedale from the experiment. I confess, I didn’t really enjoy spinning it – this Corriedale was rather rough and a bit matted (probably partly my fault for storing it as I did)

Despite not liking it; the experiment being of interest, I spun it reasonably quickly. Here are the results:

43g / 72yd (100g/167yd), Z spun, S 2-plied, approx DK/Sport, quite heavy.



See the white ties - that's how I know it's the 43g skein.



50g / 96yd (100g/192yd), Z spun, S 2-plied, approx DK/Sport, still reasonably heavy.

This one has blue ties, for the 50g second skein!

After that, I decided I’d quite like a change. Since I hadn’t spun any of the samples from the Fibreholics pack I ordered before I got my wheel, I thought I’d give some of that a go. I had a bit of a rummage and found that Laal Bear had sent me some Blue Faced Leicester, which I fancied having a go with. I wasn’t enamoured with the colour of the fibre, but I thought for 20g I could put that behind me. I spent some time fluffing and pre-drafting it – after all, my experiment suggests that will produce longer yarn, which is good.

So, from fibre…

I've tweaked the colours in this picture, but the fluff is about the right blue

…to yarn:

20g / 64yd (100g/320yd), Z spun, S Andean-plied, approx 4ply

The two colours in the plying give it a nice depth that the fibre alone didn't have, much improved!

The resulting yarn is actually a rather nice colour; I just need to decide what to do with it! If anyone has any ideas for 64yds of blue heavy 4ply yarn do shout up!

Finally, I decided to move on to another sample, I was drawn back to the My Heart Exposed braid, and even though it was Corriedale (which had fallen out of favour with me) I decided to go for it.

Pretty but not so bold as I usually go for!

This Corriedale was nicer than the previous stuff, whether it was because of different storage or just that the dyes that MHE use are that much gentler on the fibre I don’t know. I quite enjoyed spinning it! Well, when it was on the bobbin (bad spinner didn’t take any photos at this stage) it looked really pretty and I couldn’t bear the thought of plying it with itself and muddying the lovely colours. I did a Google search for Navajo plying (also known as N-ply or chain-ply) and decided to have a go. The benefit of N-ply is that it allows you to keep the colour sequence of a yarn, to create a self-stripe (or variegated) rather than heather or barber-pole yarn. I’m pretty pleased with the result, but because N-plying provides a 3-ply thickness to the yarn, I got a rather short length out of it!

20g / 36yd (100g/180yd), Z spun, S Navajo-plied, approx heavy 4ply

The texture of the Navajo ply is so finished looking!

and because I like it so, here’s another shot of the MHE:

The pinks, greens and golds all get to shine individually!

I’ve already got some more fibre on the wheel, I’m working on some Bonkers Fibre, it’s a merino / bamboo blend, which is rather slippery! It’s a pretty colour though, called Flamingo. I’m likely to finish that before I have any finished knitting to show – although I might consider showing off my WIP at some point.