Freyja Start

Tuesdays are for spinning and thankfully the Tour de Fleece reminded me how much I love spinning and made me decide to make a point of taking the time to actually spin more often!

I was a little disappointed with how much I got done this year but with no set goals and then a back injury, that's to be expected. 

Once I had finished with the few things I had set aside, hoping I would get them spun, I was pretty wide open though. I didn't have anything specific planned. Well, a little stash diving always solves that problem so that's what I did. And I came up with something heartbreakingly beautiful.

This is Freyja from Cloudlover on (brace yourself for this) 60% Superwash Merino/20% Cashmere/20% Silk. It is amazing! It feels so soft and fluffy but with amazing shine. I've really been wanting to try spinning this fiber so I was extremely happy to find this in her booth at Shepherd's Harvest this year. 

It had been a special custom blend she ordered and I don't know that she regularly carries it anymore. 

But I loved it so much that I went scouring people's stashes on Ravelry and scored a braid of the same fiber in one of my all-time favorite colorways of hers as well. (Poison Arrow if you're wondering. You can check my stash page if you'd like to see it.) 

Since I'm not really sure what I would like to do with the finished yarn and this is more of a spinning experiment than anything else, I decided to go for a chain-plied yarn so I didn't split the braid the long way at all. I simply pulled off a piece of the roving and drafted it into a fine, soft little strand. 

It looks like this when its ready to spin. Then I just started spinning it up.

I love how fine it is, although I'm not too sure I like how the white is blending right now (leading me to consider splitting the roving lengthwise now in the hopes of changing that a bit).

I'm guessing this is going to be a pretty long-term project but one I'm really enjoying. 

So for today you just get to see the start but what a start. Right? 

Ashburton on the Wheel

I feel like the entire month of February got away from me. I was so sleep-deprived and exhausted that I just couldn't form coherent sentences for writing blog posts. With the return of some more spring-like weather and sleep I am feeling a little better though and I'm ready to dive back into blogging! 

So, today it's all about spinning. It is Tuesday after all.

After a couple of disappointing spins I decided to go for something beautiful that would make me happy. I chose this.

It's Gritty Knits Merino in Ashburton. I absolutely love all the colors so I wanted to keep them somewhat separated, although this would make an absolutely beautiful barber pole yarn as well. 

As such I split the braid in several pieces the long way and wound them into balls. Here are a few of them. 

Then, when I'm getting ready to spin one of them, I draft it out until it's super fine and thin like this.

See how much smaller the strand is? I'm spinning it fine and plan to chain-ply so I can keep the colors as they are.

I'm not even halfway done with the spinning but it's beautiful so far and I should get a nice chain-plied fingering weight yarn. We got a different couch last summer and I'm finding it harder to get comfortable to spin so I haven't been spinning as much as I used to but I really miss it so I want to make it more of a priority from now on. I would like to finish the spinning on this at least, if not the plying, by the end of the month.