FF: Inspiration

The May-June project for the Ply by Night Ravelry group was to spin something from stash and knit either the Lace Ribbon scarf or the Rivulet scarf. What with moving and parenting and all, I wasn't feeling terribly inspired to do either of these projects.

However, a couple weeks ago I remembered a phenomenal project from the first round of Ply by Night, where the spinner separated out the component colors from the top, spun them in order and created an ombre yarn that went from yellow to orange to purple. It was stunning. And I thought that I might try something similar with a recent Fiber Club shipement.

"Air", Hello Yarn Fiber Club April 2009, 50/50 superfine merino and tencel

I split the fiber into four main colors: dark purple/wine, grey, green, and a bunch of sections that went from dark blue to teal. I started with the purple sections, split each one in half and spun each half on to separate bobbins. I switched from bobbin to bobbin with each color to try and keep the singles the same thickness/twist.

I've been catching up on episodes of Yarnspinners Tales and was entertained to find that one of the recent ones was about spinning bamboo and tencel. I experienced many of the things they talked about - tencel wants to be spun fine, and it tends to clump on itself, requiring that you stop, untwist and declump before going on. It also needs quite a bit of twist, but I think that since I've been spinning merino in one form or another for the last two months, that didn't stand out as much for me as it might have otherwise.

The yarn ended up absolutely gorgeous - soft, shiny, drapey. The colors worked out really well - purple to dark blue to turquoise to teal to grey to green. I spun the singles at 15:1 and plied at 12:1. 4.1 oz/117 gr, 28-18 wpi (mostly 20-22 wpi). Finished with a cool soak, thwack against the side of the house and spinning overhead in the back garden before hanging to dry.

I ended up with 406 yds, so plenty for Rivulet. The pattern calls for sport weight, so I'll go down a couple of needle sizes and see how it looks. I'm planning to start at the purple end and see how far I get through the color progression before I get tired of the pattern.