2 posts tagged “two-ply”

I've spun five-eights of the Wisteria fibre (from Freyalyn on Etsy). Four of those eighths (ie 100g) are wheelspun with a long draw (my first attempt at same), and then wheel-plied into lovely soft squooshy aran-ish three-ply, about 100m thereof (top picture). The leftovers from the three-ply made about 12m of two-ply (second picture) with a similar effect; not enough to do anything with, but I must admit to wearing it around my wrist and admiring it ;-) The two- and three-ply are both plied from non-matching singles, to blend and mix the colours, and I really like the effect. In fact, I like the effect so much that I nearly backed out of my plan to navajo-ply the remaining 100g...

I've spun a quarter of the remainder so far (the singles are in progress in the third picture). Spindle-spun, to make it as fine as I can, and getting fairly even laceweight singles. Impatiently, instead of leaving that 25g on the spindle and attaching the second 25g (I only split it in the first place because the length of roving was too long to be manageable), I wound it onto the swift, turned it into a ball and went straight ahead with navajo-plying, to produce the bottom picture. The colours are stronger and less muted than the thicker wheelspun yarn, and I really like them this way too :-) I should get something like 200m of something only slightly thicker than bought sock yarn out of this. 

The Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook has been making me think about contrasting yarn from the same starting point - the three-ply aran and the navajo-ply sock are spun from the same fibre but using different tools and techniques, and they look quite different; I'd love to see how they look together. The tentative plan here is to knit toe-up indoor socks from the whole lot. Knit the foot from the fine navajo-ply yarn, with its strong colours and clear colour changes, and then switch to the squooshy aran - more muted colours and more soft and cuddly - for the leg (making appropriate adjustments to stitch count and needle size). I guess it's kind of an in-joke-for-one - the point of the plan is to compare and contrast the two different yarns, and the audience for whom the experiment is intended is just me (I don't know any other spinners). But the colours are so beautiful that it can't help but look pretty :-)

If there's a way to alter the order of the photos to the left, I can't work out what it is :-(

So, in slightly bizarre order, my latest adventures in fibre:

• (top picture) this is my first attempt at carding, using all the stray bits of fibre from my other projects, which I've been collecting in a pretty wooden bowl on a shelf next to my desk. It needs more work still, but I'm intrigued by the possibilities in carding
• (second picture) this is the end result of the purple and mauve I've been spindle-spinning, although it's not this bright in real life (actually, take this comment as applying to all of these pictures. Apparently there was actually light in my library this morning when I took the pics). It's three ply, two of bright purple and one of mauve, 200m, and really soft. I plied it on the wheel, because spindle-plying is the dullest thing ever. Not completely sure what I'm doing with this, but then that's true of so much of my spinning!
• (third picture) bright purple singles left over from the above. Maybe around 130m; not sure. I might leave this as singles, or I might two-ply it with itself, or I might just wait and see what other inspiration strikes
• (fourth picture) Remember what I said above about these pictures being too bright? That's especially true here. This yarn isn't actually glowing. Honest. This is  Valentine merino from Violet Green that Dyddgu traded me for the ex-Jaywalker sassy stripes. I still think I got the better part of the deal :-) This is my first real wheel-spun, and technically it's a bit of a mess - the singles are over-spun, and then I underplied it, so it's pretty hopeless. But the colours are gorgeous, and it feels beautifully soft and velvetty knitted up, so I don't care :-) Talking of knitting up, the knitting visible in the pic is my second attempt with this yarn. I started off thinking I'd make something in reversible entrelac, because the way the colours work seemed well suited to entrelac's small blocks, but I don't much like its onesidedness. Alternating squares of stocking and reverse stocking stitches seemed like a great idea, and I intend to try it again sometime with smooth yarn to see if it's inherently flawed, or if it was just let down by my uneven yarn. Anyway, I frogged it, and am now making an attempt on the Dashing fingerless gloves from Knitty. Which I like so far, although I've been neglecting them for other pursuits (such as the Shadow and Ghost socks, and the next picture...)
• (fifth picture) Peacock yarn-in-progress! This is my current project. I'm a bit over halfway through spinning the dark green (Petrol from Texere), and then I'll do the dark blue (Rich Royal, ditto) and the light blue (Cornflower, ditto ditto), and ply the lot together. And then I'll look at it and think about how pretty it is, and fail to decide what to knit with it but I Don't Care :-)
  
• (sixth picture) The rest of the Texere order that supplied the above. A big (400g) bag each of purple and dark red, and a bunch of small (50g) bags of other colours. When I made the order, I was thinking about doing some blending with the hand cards that came with the wheel, but having discovered that it's actually quite a lot of work, and that I like blending-by-plying, that might not actually happen. Still, should keep me in fibre for a while.
• (seventh picture) This is the sample for the Peacock. It's spindle- rather than wheel-spun, just because it's easier to do tiny quantities that way, and I was sampling for colour rather than for spin.