Fiber Friday: Corriedale Handspun

My main spinning goal before we left Houston was to finish up all the singles (2 lbs worth) of the Corriedale I dyed last fall at Yarn School. That accomplished, when the wheel arrived in the UK a few days after we did, my next step was to ply all seven bobbins of singles.

Yes, that's right. Seven bobbins. In keeping with a multitude of wiser and more experienced spinners out there, I choose to spin all the singles and mix up the bobbins in the plying. So I plied the last bobbin (#7) with the first one. #6 with #2, #5 with #3, etc. Of course, there wasn't an even amount of singles on each bobbin, so it didn't line up exactly, but I ended up with only a small amount to Andean ply when all was said and done.

I ended up with 4 skeins, 1 lb (plus or minus a bit), of 2-ply, looks to be about sport weight, but probably ranges from fingering to light worsted. The singles were spun long-draw from the fold from commercial top at 10:1, and plied at the same ratio. Soaked in hot hot hot water (the hot water from my tap is over 120 degrees F), and got a fair bit of purple dye coming off, but no noticeable fading of the yarn.

The fiber was not terribly soft in the top, but the finished yarn is nice and cushy. It was dyed in a crock pot with purple, violet, brilliant blue and orange Jacquard Acid dyes, and I didn't do anything to try and match up the colors when plying - I wanted them to blend together pretty well.

I ended up with ~1000 yds, which is kind of disappointing - I'd been wanting to make Tempest with this stuff, without the stripes. But my size calls for about 1200 yds. I might be able to make it anyway. Guess I'll have to swatch and see!