Spinning Round Up

I’ve been (because 1/3 of that fleece that filled the trunk in the previous post came to live with me) trying to use up a bunch of the spinning stash, and as a result have been most industrious at the wheel. (Nothing like running out of room to light a fire under you.) The spinning stash is as out of control as a 16 year old with a credit card and a pair of ill fitting jeans, and I’m determined to convert much of it to yarn and get it out the door. Since I’ve made similar vows about things like the sock yarn stash (and had it promptly double in size) this time I really mean it. Here’s what I’ve finished:

Another Enchanted Knoll batt was converted to yarn, and I forget the colourway that this is (I’ve misplaced the label, sorry guys.) but I my best guess would be that it’s not Gold Dust Woman. (That’s a terrible guess, I know) since this is much darker and more like an old penny.

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It has sparkles in it too, and I’m surprised how much my linen-wearing-veggie-eating-tree-hugging self really loves them. It puts a little disco in my heart. (The sparkles aren’t showing up well here, but trust me. This skein has lots of it.)

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Then, still feeling productive, I took one of the Sheep 2 Shoe kits (I think this colourway was a one-off…) and attempted a self striping yarn. I divided the roving into three chunks, then stripped each one in half and spun each half in the same direction,

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and then plied the halves against each other to get the colours to match up – which they really, really didn’t. I have sneaking suspicion that I might have jumbled the bobbins and some point, so I tried again with the last one, and was way, way more careful.

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That worked. The end result was two skeins of a marled (barberpole) yarn, and one skein of a really nice striping yarn, where the colours lined up beautifully.

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How I’d use this in a project would make me more crazy (I have a thing about stuff matching) but luckily this was a gift for the lovely Rachel H, and now it’s her problem that the stuff doesn’t match. You can see the matchy one on the far right, and that the other two are quite a bit more random – still pretty mind you, and it’s really lovely squishy dk weight yarn.. but not matchy. Rachel H claims to love it, but the proof will be in whether or not it’s ever on her needles.

Next up? A great big batt from the now defunct Lindenhof mill – that’s taking up a lot of real estate in the wool room.

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It’s a pretty green on one end, and a lovely cream on the other, and I’m going to spin it to preserve that change. it’s a really, really big batt (300g) and I imagine that if I do it right, I’ll end up with a very long skein with one looooong colour change, white to green. I imagine then that it would make a pretty stunning circular shawl. White in the middle, shading out to the green around the edge, like a wildflower or… well. Queen Anne’s lace… which was exactly what the batt was named. (I may be a little impressionable.)

All I need now is the perfect circular shawl pattern… and, er. The yarn. (Ok. This might take a bit.)

Maybe I’ll knit some socks while I figure it out.