Spinning Frenzy

I have been doing lots of spinning lately. It began because Amy wanted me to spin up some of the fiber she had dyed so she could see how it might look. I picked the purple Peruvian wool because I loved how it changes tones. I pulled out my beloved ladybug and spun it up as a simple two-ply, dividing the fiber down the middle and spinning each one on a separate bobbin. Very pretty if I do say so myself.

I had so much fun with that project I decided to finish up a few things I already had on a bobbin. I pulled out this luscious grey 80% Merino 20%silk from Cute Bunny Farms that I purchased at Rhinebeck in 2012. (No, it had not been on the bobbin since then!) I spun it onto a single bobbin, then chain-plied it to create a 3-ply sport-weight yarn.

Spinning was putting in me such a relaxed and zen-like state, I had to keep going. I pulled out some Merino in the "I'm a sexy squash" colorway from Knitters Nightmare. I had grabbed it up from Sadie at this past SSK in Nashville. Sooo not my typical colors, but as I was plying it, I fell head over heels in LOVE! It is probably in my top 3 favorite finished handspun yarns to date. I fractal spun it, which basically means you divide up the color repeats differently on one bobbin than on the other. In this case, I first split the roving down the middle. I spun the first half directly from that piece of roving - giving me long color repeats. I then took the second half and split into fourths. I then spun these each back to back on the second bobbin, producing noticeably shorter repeats of color. Plying these two bobbins together then produced some jaw-dropping gorgeous barber polling, which is when two different colors twist together to form the yarn.

Next on my bobbin is 6 ounces of Highland Handmades fiber in my fav colors of pink, white, and green. Maybe I will have it done for the podcast!