Lovely New Fiber!

So, I've had a woven shawl idea rolling around in my head the past couple of weeks and I came across this lovely fiber on Etsy:

It's merino-tencel in the colorway "Cabbage Rose" from JunePryceFiberArts. I got two braids of it and I think it's going to be perfect.

While I was over there I also came away with this:

Also merino-tencel, colorway "Film Noir" (love that colorway name!). This one I think I may spin to maintain the gradiation (probably using chain ply) to knit into a scarf, possibly also a hat. A friend thought it would be very pretty with a brightly-colored wool coat. And it would, but since I only have a black winter coat (for now), I think I'll have to be monochromatic.

My Bald Little Pony

Just finished:

This is from Gnome Garden, bought at the Maryland Sheep and Wool from Cloverhill Farms several years ago (not sure of the exact year on this one). It's merino and bamboo in lovely pinks and purples with lot of sparkle. I have a little over three ounces of it. (And another 3 ounces or so in blues). It is perhaps a little more pink than in the photo, but it's pretty all the same. It ended up being about 310 yards at around 18 wraps per inch. So, it's about a fingering weight. I think it might make a nice hat and small scarf or cowl.


This is what it looked like:

As I was spinning it, the sparkles got everywhere. My husband's comment was that it looked like someone took clippers to My Little Pony. (Hence, the post title.)

Currently on the spindles:


This is a gorgeous blue silk that I've been spindling off and on for a while. I had two braids of the silk, each about 1 oz. I'm finally on the second braid and will continue to take it along with me whenever I have to wait somewhere. I think I may end up plying it with other colors and weaving with it. I got a new book recently called Spin to Weave by Sara Lamb. It is a lovely book with lots of advice about spinning yarns specifically for weaving. She has a beautiful scarf from silk. Several beautiful scarves from silk, actually. But for the one I'm talking about, she spun silk singles from various colors and used three plies. She plied the colors in different proportions - e.g., 3 plies of blue, 2 plies of blue and one of burgundy, etc. She uses these plies for the warp, packing in the warp and using a thin weft to create a warp-faced weave. The scarf shifts gradually shifts colors from blue/purple to burgundy to gold. It is truly beautiful and something I may end up doing.

I also have some fiber coming from Etsy. I'll post it when I get it.

Lovely Spun Corriedale

This is some lovely fibery goodness that I've finally spun up. Apparently, I purchased this lovely Corriedale way back in 2007 at the Maryland Sheep and Wool. It's beautiful with black, reds and purples. It's probably been on the wheel for a couple of years. Anyway, I finally decided to finish spinning it up and plied it. I ended up with two decent sized skeins, one of the skeins is more of a laceweight and one more of a light fingering.

(Click for larger picture)

It's not as shiny as in the picture. It's hard getting a decent picture with reds and purples on a sunny day, even harder when it's been raining for days! It really is a rich mix of cool reds and warmer purples with a bit of black.

Things I learned from this project, if you let a spinning project languish for this long, chances are that your spinning won't match the spinning you did a while ago. I also learned that it is possible to go back and add more twist to the ply before you finish the yarn. I did this with the laceweight skein. I had finished spinning it a while ago and it looked sort of weedy in places, but after spinning it again (by putting the skein on a swift and spinning it on to the wheel), it added enough twist to look better. Still looks a bit weedy though.

I do like the look of the fingering weight better in the skein. Not sure what I'll do with it yet, but the two skeins likely will not be used in the same project. Maybe as a weft on a weaving project, but more likely a knitted hat and matching scarf if there's enough.

I have some more interesting stuff in the works. So more later.