We're still going, but at a much more reasonable pace. The family is back on its usual daily schedule (gym in the morning, and play time in the afternoon) and I had it in mind to work significantly on something I'd been saving for the Tour for the past year. It is a 50/50 blend of merino and silk dyed by Blue Moon Fiber Arts in one of my favorite colorways - Puck's Mischief.
I bought this roving at Sock Summit last year. It's beautiful in shades of green, purple and blue. I really love these colors and used them to knit my February Lady sweater.
It wasn't until I opened up the twist of roving and really looked at it that I came to a stand-still. I couldn't figure out how to spin this up! Sure, it's blue, purple and green. But it's bright and dark green. It's purple and wine. It's blue and gray. But not all of these sections abut one another in ways that blend well. For instance, green is not particularly happy being spun into purple. And if I don't line up the spun single correctly for plying, I could end up with a "muddy" mess of color.
So, I sampled today. I spun three ply yarn and two ply yarn out of an extra end of the fiber. I'd like to knit them up into little squares to see what sort of fabric they make. I'm considering doing a technique called Navajo-plying which would let me keep my colors together and yields what is essentially a three-ply yarn. But I'm also considering spinning up something complimentary to use as the second (or two more) singles.
I do have a lovely batch of purple fiber from the same company, dyed on a merino/yak blend. That, plied with the merino/silk would give me a lovely blend of color. I'm also tempted to go down to my local dyer and see if she can't match the sky blue in a lot of merino or merino/silk. I think it would blend with everything here in a very complimentary fashion.
So, today, I've sampled. And I'm thinking. And tomorrow I may spin up something else from my stash while I continue to figure out just what this fiber needs to be.
UPDATE at 8:00 PMI pulled off a pinch from the end of my merino/silk blend, and a bigger pinch from the purple blend I thought about plying it with and spun myself a quick sample. The purple top is merino/yak and it spins up gorgeous and fuzzy, while the merino/silk is shiny and sensuous. I'm not sure they pair well, but it was worth making a few yards just to see. I'm also leaning more towards plying with sky blue, or sticking with the Navajo-ply idea.
No comments:
Post a Comment