During the Bettina’s Pegasus SAL in the MirkwoodArts group, I have spun another project. After the colourful rainbow that I spun and knitted previously, this project was much more subdued in colour.
For this project, I combined two rovings. The first was a fibre blend (BFL/silk) from Wild Wood Wool, one of my souvenirs from England. The second was a very soft blend of merino and silk and a little bit of firestar from Nunoco, a Snuggle Bunny in the colourway Pink Rabbit. Since Nunoco does not exist anymore, I cherish my last couple of rovings from them.
The Wild Wood Wool fibre looked and felt more course than the incredibly soft Nunoco, but it’s really soft itself. The combination of these colours reminds me of a slightly cloudy winter sunrise, hence the name
Time to mix the fibres! I decided to create 32 rolags from the 200 grams of yarn. In my experience, they won’t become too long – I don’t like having to manage a dangling rolag when I’m spinning. So I divided both rovings into 32 pieces.
I divided the Wild Wood Wool colours randomly, so as not to have regular stripes. Then I blended one bit of each fibre together into a rolag and filled up my suitcase.
The Snuggle Bunny really subdues the darker bits of the Wild Wood Wool, as I had hoped. I didn’t want stark contrast in this spin, but a bit of colour would be fine. I started spinning, and the singles became quite thin rather naturally. I decided to go with it and make this into a delicate yarn.
I used MirkwoodArts spindles of course, because the SAL was organised by that group. However, I think they are not as suitable for spinning this thinly as some spindles from other makers that I have. You can spin thinly with them, but you have to be more patient because the spindles spin a bit slower than true Russian spindles (with a narrow whorl).
In this photo, you can see the difference in how thick the top of the shaft is. This is where you put your spindle in motion, and the thinner it is, the more speed you will put into the spin without much effort. The MirkwoodArts spindles have the thickest flicking area here, the Glasspins in the middle are thinner, and the thinnest shafts are those by Malcolm Fielding. Quite noticable, when you put them together into a project. Not to say that I don’t like the MirkwoodArts spindles, I really do, but I prefer them for spinning thicker.
I didn’t manage to finish this project within the SAL (which ran until December 31), but I did finish spinning last Friday. Yesterday, I chain plied the singles on my wheel, and then I wound the yarn onto a
I love the subtle colours and the variations in the yarn. This will probably become a lacy shawl at some point. One of the lovely romantic designs by Boo Knits, perhaps?
