Two colourful handspun yarns

A while back I bought two similarly dyed merino wool slivers by fleece artist. They were pretty much the same except one had more red and the other had more tan. I thought it would be interesting to spin each one in a different style.

I spun the first top into a heavy worsted slubby thick and thin single. To prepare the wool, I separated it by stripping off sections lengthwise which were about five times thicker than my final yarn. This yarn’s colours change every few yards or so. Next time I strip the top like that I will try making my lengths of fiber thinner so that the colours change more frequently.

The second style I spun was a self-striping 2-ply worsted-weight yarn.

My method was to divide the wool lengthwise into two equal halves. It worked really well! The colours lined up nicely and the singles were almost the exact same length, one was maybe six inches longer than the other. It’s always so nice when that happens.

There you have it! Two very different looking handspun yarns from two very similar wool tops.

I’ll leave you with a photo of these really cool flowers, if you recognize them please let me know what they’re called. They start as pink balls that look like lanterns and then bloom into an explosion of purple and pink petals.

 

The moon and some bulky handspun yarn

I love taking pictures of the moon but they rarely turn out nicely; the contrast between the white moon and black sky is difficult to capture in a photo. I’d say the moon and the sky are two of my very favourite photography subjects. A few days ago, I took this picture of the moon in the daytime:

I must admit, my photo wasn’t quite this dramatic until I gave it a few digital touch-ups I am very pleased with how it turned out.

Onto the yarn! I spun this fleece artist roving into a really plump super-bulky thick and thin yarn.

This was one of my first successful bulky singles spun on my spinning wheel. I usually prefer my spindle for these types of yarn as it gives me so much more precision and control.

I’m gearing up for a weekend trip and what better knitting project to bring than hand-spun socks. This is the bobbin I will be bringing with me for the ride, Pleasurecraft hand-dyed wool/mohair blend from this top. I spun a fine single with a lot of twist in hopes that it will hold up to heavy wear. It is a self-striping yarn featuring yellow, blue, green, and orange.

In the next post I will show you two different styles of yarn spun from two very similar wool tops.

 

Cosymakes’ Subtle Stripes Spinning Kit

A short while ago, I won this amazingly beautiful BFL wool spinning kit for taking part in a contest on Cosy’s blog. Thanks again, Cosy!

I highly recommend Cosy’s spinning kits (available at her shop on etsy) to any spinners or people looking for a gift for a spinner. The dye colours were beautiful individually and in combination and the wool was soft, shiny and a pleasure to spin.

The basic idea is to spin the largest 2 oz braid into a single on one bobbin, then spin the 4 1/2 oz multi-coloured braids onto another bobbin and finally ply them together.

Although it was my intention to follow those instructions, thing’s didn’t exactly turn out as planned!

When it came time to ply my two different coloured singles together, they just wouldn’t ply and I realized that the singles were each spun in a different direction, making it impossible for them to twist together. I had managed to make this basic spinning mistake because one single had been spun on my spinning wheel, and one was spun on my drop spindle. I had never tried plying from both at the same time before which is where the confusion arose. So, I changed my strategy and spun each bobbin into it’s own 3-ply navajo yarn which kept the striping colour changes intact.

I now have one light blue skein and one green, white, brown and blue striping skein.

As I ended up with a 3-ply yarn instead of a 2-ply as I had intended in the first place, it is definitely bulkier than I had planned (about 8-10 wpi, bulky to super-bulky weight). I wanted to knit a baby sweater, possibly a BSJ but am now reconsidering because this yarn may be too thick.

 

Handspun Corriedale and BFL Wool

Do you recognize this fiber?

This is a plied yarn using the same roving as I used to spin a bulky single (the yarn in the blog header). It’s a three strand navajo-plied yarn, spun on my Ashford Kiwi spinning wheel. I love spinning a chain ply yarn for many reasons, the most important one is that the color patterns of the spinning fiber stay fairly intact in the final yarn (a compulsion of mine).

Yarn that I spun from wool purchased at Maisy Day Handspun’s esty shop, two colourways with really great names:

Anemone (Corriedale wool):

…and Life Aquatic (BFL wool):

 

Small skeins and samples of hand-spun

I finally spun that milk fiber into a more substantial-sized skein, and it looks really pretty. It seemed like a good fiber for lace to me, so I decided to spin a fine 2-ply with it. Here it is pictured with two skeins of navajo-plyed yarn, one BFL wool and one organic merino wool:

From left to right: milk fiber 2-ply, BFL wool navajo 3-ply, organic merino navajo 3-ply.

I have also been plugging away at my hand-spun shawl:

But the biggest project I’ve been working on that is taking up the most of my time is still in the top-secret planning stage. Here is a hint (organic merino handspun yarn in a variety of styles and sizes):

Any guesses on what those are all about? I’d love to hear them!

 

Handmade doll with handspun hair

I am very proud of my little hand sewn doll, Dolly. I made her many months ago, before christmas, I think. I still haven’t made the right thing for her to wear, though I did try knitting her a dress. Still working on her wardrobe. I rarely sew but after having worked on this, I know I would like to do it more often. It’s a really gratifying craft. The best part was sewing her yarn hair onto her head. The worst part was messing up on her face embroidery so you can see the end of the dark thread behind the light fabric. The fabric was a fairly sheer small floral print.

The yarn was some of the first yarn I had ever spun, a fleece artist dyed merino wool. I think this might have been the first hand-painted roving I had ever spun. I love the colours! Her hair also has a slight kink in it because it was knitted and unraveled before becoming hair. I love hand-spun as doll hair. I also like to use it as a replacement for ribbon on presents. What do you use hand-spun yarn for (aside from knitting, weaving, etc)?

I also photographed a tiny ball of yarn in this extreme close-up picture:

It is a really pretty light aqua/ turquoise with some dark gray. This corriedale wool came as a bonus with my order from Maisy Day Handspun. I plan on eventually using it in some weaving.

This is the other half of the braid of fiber the yarns spun in yesterday’s post came from:

Pretty, colourful hand-painted merino wool from alchemy fiber arts. I am still not quite sure how I want to spin this yarn.

 

Rainbow colours in handspun

I’ve been having a lot of fun doing photo shoots with my hand spun yarns! This hand spun merino wool yarn twist is one of my favourite pictures of the day:

This bulky single strand yarn was spun with alchemy fiber arts spinning fiber that was beautifully hand-painted. The merino was mostly green but had many different spots of pinks, blues, orange, yellow, purple, etc in it. I don’t know why I’m referring to it in the past tense because there is still half of the braid of roving left! I am lingering over using this stuff up as it has one of my most sought-after characteristics : all of the colours.

I would usually say “green and blue”, but my favourite colour really is “all of them at once”. So, what is your favourite colour? Or better yet, favourite colour combination? Aside from “all of them”, I really enjoy olive green with bright aqua/turquoise.

Here are all three balls of this yarn:

I found it hard to pick up the green of this yarn in these photos, in person it really is noticeably mostly green. You wouldn’t be able to tell from this next picture! Here is the same merino spun as a bulky 3-ply:

This yarn looks much more purple and less green than in it in person, although it was spun from part of the braid that had lots of purple in it. There is only a very small skein of it but I may spin the rest of it the same way, I love how it looks so much. Watching colour progress in a navajo-ply yarn is so much fun.

And finally, a shot of the full picture my new header came from. I really love how this yarn (and picture!) turned out:

I spun this single strand corriedale wool yarn from Maisy Day Handspun hand-dyed by Sarah, colourway: anemone. I loved working with this fiber, it’s so shiny and easy to draft. Sarah’s colourways and fibers are really beautiful and a pleasure to work with. I spun this same wool into a different style of yarn and will take pictures and post them soon.

 

Milk Yarn and merino handspun

This looks ridiculously luxurious:

…and it is! It’s the milk protein fiber I was writing about in the last post. Here is the tiny ball I spun on my drop spindle:

It was slippery and silky to spin, and the individual fibers were so fine and slick it was a challenge to keep control of it all. I am looking forward to spinning a larger amount of it on my spinning wheel. In fact, I have merino singles on a bobbin, maybe I’ll ply some with this little ball of milk fiber. If you’ve spun this fiber before, please let me know if you have any tips.

Now for a shot of colour! A small one, first. Lots of dove grey with streaks of pale blue, really pretty and soft:

This navajo 3-ply yarn was spun from fleece artist hand-dyed merino wool.

Something a little more bright – Purple and turquoise:

This yarn is also navajo 3-ply and was spun from fleece artist hand-dyed merino wool.