Quickie

A quick one from me to show you the plied yarn from yesterday. Then I’m off to do “something” about the house, which has slipped into a chaos that’s beginning to feel permanent.  I feel like that “something” is going to be cleaning, but am hoping to discover an alternative. (Over the last few days I have tried knitting, spinning, having brunch with my daughter, snuggling a baby, drinking coffee, going for a walk, napping, drinking wine and ignoring it. No dice, and the fridge still smells funny, but will keep you posted.)  Last night I plied up the two bobbins of yarn I had, and the end result, while quite pretty, isn’t quite what I wanted – although I think that next time I try it, I’ll get something that’s more like what I intended.  If you recall – I had two colours of fibre. One reddish-orange, and one brown. I split the reddish-orange into thirds, and spun 1/3 onto one bobbin, then finished with brown, then spun the other 2/3 onto another bobbin, and finished that with brown.  In theory, when I plied those two bad boys against each other, I should have gotten a skein that was 1/3 red/red, 1/3 red/brown, and 1/3 brown/brown.

onniddy 2015-08-11

In reality, what I ended up with was a skein that’s goes red/red, a tiny bit of red/brown, and then brown/brown.  That middle third isn’t as big as I would have liked. Knit up, there will still be a transition, but it won’t be the third I thought would happen.

yarnstrand 2015-08-11

In retrospect (like the funny smell in the fridge after 2 weeks of ignoring it)  this really shouldn’t be a total surprise. I think where I went wrong was when I eyeballed the amount of brown. A smarter spinner, the one that I will be when I try again… a smarter spinner would have done something clever, like weigh the brown and divide it up that way, instead of what I did do, which was guess. Badly – apparently.

yarnskein1 2015-08-11

I think it would have worked better too, if I started with the brown on the wheel, and then the red. I ended up with an unequal amount left on the bobbins – one ran out before the other did, and I think that threw off the calculations – if you can call making a wild guess a calculation, which it turns out you can’t.

yarnball1 2015-08-11

Still, for all the work it is a pretty little ball of yarn, and not a total disaster, and it’s encouraged me to go back up to the stash and try and find another two fibres to try it with.  You know. After I clean. I’m going to start with the fridge, then vacuum the cat hair of of the…. everything, and then it’s back to the wheel.  Anyone have a better way to come up with what I want?