Mardi Gras Rose

Mardi Gras Rose
Originally uploaded by Project Pictures

I love when inspiration strikes just the right note, and you can actually follow through on an idea.

I've been stumped for two weeks on this month's Spindler's group challenge. The theme is "Mardi Gras", and quite honestly, I've never been to one. I'm not really thrilled with the traditional combination of purple, green and gold, either. I couldn't manage to piece them together from my meagre stash of fiber, nor did I feel like making any sort of novelty yarn with lame, sparkle or beads.

So I went to Google and searched their image database, giving it "Mardi Gras" to go on. Of course the majority of images that came back were pictures in green, purple and gold, along with beads, feathers, masks, and masqueraders. But amongst all that, one popped out to the front, grabbing my attention. I clicked through to the page and read up on the Mardi Gras Rose.

Now, this I could work with!

I happily went stash diving. I have a nice variety of tiny bits of random rovings that I picked up on a lark. It was called a "Cupcake Bag" on Etsy, and is someone else's leftovers from other projects. I'm not entirely sure HOW you end up with leftovers, but I'm perfectly happy to practice on them! I culled out what would work for me, and arranged them artfully to reflect my inspiration.

Then I developed my plan for spinning.

I decided I wanted a soft, fluffy yarn from this batch, and I wanted to preserve a specific color sequence, but I didn’t want to chain ply it. I split out each color that I wanted in the roving, and came up a little short in weight, so added a little blue to the beginning to bring me up to one full ounce of roving. I then split each section into thirds (I love my gram scale) and spun them up in sequence.

In the end I had a color sequence that went: blue/green for the dark stem and foliage, bright pink, orange pink, yellow, orange pink, and bright pink. I knew I wouldn’t spin each section exactly the same, but I wanted some blending between each color so I was pleased with the prospect of the singles not matching exactly. I also decided that because I already felt very confident with a worsted draw from the end of the roving, that instead I would practice a woolen draw from the fold of each section, trying to spin the singles evenly.

Here's the final result. It is approximately 45 yards in 30 grams, woolen spun, 3 ply. It is also deliciously squishy and soft!