First of, I really want to make C. a pair of handspun socks. I've gotten confident enough now with my knitting that I'm sure they'll fit right. Spinning up some good yarn for the project is the real challenge. The March fiber from Spunky Eclectic's Spunky Club was just the ticket. Base fiber is a dark Blue Faced Leister (BFL) with dyed segments of teal, green, red and brown. A very manly set of colors on an easy to spin roving.
Since it's for socks, I wanted a true 3-ply yarn. That meant tearing the roving into three equal parts. I then split each part into four strips and spun each onto a bobbin. Finally, I plied the three together. In the "good karma" department, two of the three bobbins emptied out *at the same time*. There was not more than 10 yards of single left on the third bobbin, so there was almost no waste. Finished product looks like this:
Spun S, plied Z. Final size around 16 WPI. Just about 375 yards. I think the initial weight was a little low, but I'm still quite happy with the yardage.
Today, hot off the bobbin, is a 100% Merino superwash roving from Zen Yarn Garden's Spin Art Fibre Club. It's the April colorway, inspired by Georgia O'Keefe's "Red Canna" painting. I did this one as a chain ply (just because I need to get better at it) and because I thought the colors would be more interesting if I could preserve them. Anyway, yarn looks like this:
Once again, spun S, plied Z. Final WPI again around 16. This time, it's just *over* 400 yards - plenty for socks for me (yeah, we just talked about not chain plying for socks) or maybe a nice scarf.
Both these yarns go on vacation with me this week. Woot!
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