Spinning Against The Tide

Hard to believe its been two weeks since my last post, needless to say I've been very busy and I've also done quite a bit of seasonal driving over the last two weekends aswell.

The craft fair went ok, I sold a couple of knitted bags, but I didn't sell many stockings, I've been giving them away to friends and family with Christmas cards!


Rosedale United is on its final furlong, I've reached a point where according to the pattern I should cast off some stitches, which I can see would be the front neck, and I seem to have come to a halt.

This weekend whilst visiting family I needed 'something' to knit so cast on some simple socks with some Trekking XXL.

This first yarn is a spindle spun merino 2ply, this was spun from rolags of processed tops, I just mixed up the colours as I was carding.

I spun the first strand the day before the craft fair and the second during the day of the fair. When I transferred the yarn to the bobbins for plying one bobbin looked much more than the other one, but I wasn't too concerned knowing that I had weighed the fibre first. What was really quite funny as this is far from perfectly even yarn, is that when I got to the end of the plying the difference in the two yarns was just 3 inches. Must just be an even amount of thick and thin throughout!

This second yarn was spun from my own handpainted bfl, I started out spinning a 'super slubby' yarn, and only when I'd washed it and set the twist did I get to see that the super slubs weren't going to work out, and realised why. This was a superwash bfl, so the fibres don't hook together like an untreated wool will. Basically the slubs were a little unstable, but I love these colours so much...what's a girl to do?

So I thought about it, and decided to gently spin the slubs out, I went back to the wheel and I fast spun the yarn that didn't need re-spinning and carefully thinned the slubs into a thick/thin semi slubby yarn.

If my experimental samples for my first college piece work out, I may even use this yarn for it!