This lovely purple and blue fiber is mixed wool, mohair, firestar and angelina from Sweet Pea Fibers. I spun thin singles and then Navajo plied them into a heavy worsted 3-ply, all on the spindle. The little half ounce puff of fiber yielded 7 yards of lovely sparkling yarn.
Another Sweet Pea Fibers batt was about a half ounce of mixed wool, cultivated silk, sari silk threads, angelina and firestar. This was the first time I'd spun anything with threads mixed in and it wasn't as difficult as I had expected. They give a nice texture to the yarn, and personally I think plying really helped keep them in line. Like the first one, this was spun and then Navajo plied on the spindle to give 9 yards of rustic worsted. I think the mix of colors is actually better in the spun yarn than in the batt.
Another fiber in the Sweet Pea Fibers sampler was a pink, brown and green hand-dyed merino top. I split it into thirds and spun it on the spindle. I loaded each third onto a bobbin and then plied a 3-ply yarn off the bobbins, back onto the spindle. I was aiming for a yarn that gradually changed colors and had sections that were mostly pink, brown or green. It was fairly successful and I got 23 yards of squishy round worsted with regions that are more strongly one color than another. I really like the effect in the skein and it will be interesting to see it knitted up. I ran out on one bobbin first and had enough left on the other two to try another mix. I still had some of the solid green merino/tussah singles on another bobbin, so I substituted it in as the third ply. I ended up with 5 1/2 yards of spring green yarn with pops of pink and brown. Again, it's fascinating to see how changing one ply can have such an impact on the final yarn.
The solid green single also came into play when I spun up my hand-dyed merino wool sample from Hedgehog Fibres. It's a colorway called "Stranger" and I love the chartreuse, moss green and eggplant mix. I didn't want to muddy all of the colors together, and it was fortuitous that the green merino/silk was such a close match to the base green. I spun each one up on the spindle and then plied them together to make 18 yards of worsted 2-ply. The greens gracefully intertwine through most of the yarn, and the eggplant and dark moss green and brown pop out here and there. I really love how this finished and I think it's more interesting than it would have been if I had attempted to spin a singles yarn. It's one of my absolute favorites so far and I keep taking it out to pet it. I may even love it too much to knit with it.
After my two experiments with the Silver Sun Alpacas "Wine and Chocolate" batt, I still had some singles left. I Navajo plied them on the spindle to finish with six yards of very lovely 3 ply. In this case, the white mohair streaked out and took the limelight from the brown and wine. I really like how the Navajo plying maintained the color progressions in the singles.
Sweet Pea Fibers sent a bonus batt with my order made of hand-dyed wool, tussah silk, nylon sparkle and angelina. It was a fun mix of pinks with little shots of teal and gold. I spun and Navajo plied this on the spindle. It's bulkier than the others and gave nine yards of cheerful 3-ply. The sparkle is subtle and the same color as the yarn, but it's enough to make it glitter in the light. I had contemplating plying this with a lot of different singles, but in the end I thought it needed to stand on its own.
It's really hard to believe I got my spindle a week ago today. I've been having so much fun trying different techniques and experimenting with different fibers. I have a whole pile of mini-skeins to admire and each one is so unique.
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