Semi Planned Spinning

Like a lot of spinners, I don't plan much when I buy fibre or start a project, I know I could,  I just don't. 

But I have learned one thing, buy enough, buy more than enough, 100 grams of fibre is a sample and what do you do when you have sampled, created a lovely yarn and there is only 100 grams.

This is 16 oz. bought at Madrona, I wanted colours that I don't usually use and a challenge.  I took Amelia Garripoli's excellent class in plying with colour and thought this would be good practice.

Without planning much about it, I started to spin, all four colours spinning across the top, trying to use them all evenly but not blend to much.  Bobbin shows the singles, skein is the two ply.

Then I striped the four colours apart and spun singles of just one colour,  Plied the one colour with the mixed colours, that's the greenish on the bobbin on the right.



Now I have 5 different colour blends and I am sorry I didn't buy more. A pound is not quite enough for a sweater. 

There are a number of other things I could do,  one idea from Amelia's class would be to card the colours together which would produce a neutral.  It's a nice preparation and I don't want to do any more work but some day I will try that.  Could stripe the colours apart, spin and ply for 4 solids.  That would be interesting but 9 different colours would be to much in one garment.

I could blend it with a neutral, white, grey or black, but white would make a very pastel and I don't have a grey or black fibre that would work.

All this is going though my mind as I spin and think about what I am going to knit.  And I want to knit something quick using less than a lb. that I can wear at the conference the end of May or put in the competition.

I am going to knit L'envelope by Sally Melville, my third one.  And spin the turquoise as a solid and use it for the cast on and cast off, important design elements.

   Me in the second L'envelope.