Fiona and I have been busy
I have been becoming very familiar with my spinning machine, Fiona the ladybug. We've been playing with lots of pretty fun delicious fibres and suddenly I have developed a bit of a handspun stash.
This yummy BFL silk blend really liked to stick to my clothes while spinning. What is it about silk blends that make the fibres stick to everything?
I love the barber pole effect that happens even in the singles of this yarn. And they made a nice squishy 2-ply yarn.
2-ply
'Delish' Pigeonroof Studios
75% Blue Faced Leicester, 25% Silk
4.5 oz.
Next I got the next installment of the always fabulous CosySpins Falkland Fibre Club. I'm really developing a fondness for this fibre. No matter what, the yarn stays squishy, springy and awesome. It always plumps during the finishing and even sometimes during the plying.
The club offering was 2 related colourways braided together. I was really excited to spin it up but had to think of how I was going to treat the colours.
I ended up spinning each colour as a separate single, then plying them together.
2-ply
Fibre Club for May
'Pacific mixed match' CosySpins
100% Falkland
4 oz.
The colours really blended together nicely in the plying. In some spots are pretty much solid. The green ended up being longer than the blue, so I Andean plied what remained on the bobbin. I like how well that works out and that you still end up with one skein. The yarn is squishy and soft and super pretty.
As soon as this delicious superwash merino showed up in my mailbox, I knew I had to spin it right away. Soooooooo soft. And I was really interested how the colours would work out in the spinning.
Turns out they turned out to be awesome! Again with the super cool barber poling in the singles. This time creating really interesting blends of colour. This would make a very interesting singles yarn—if you're into that sort of thing. I have yet to try making a balanced singles yarn. Maybe one of these days I'll give it a shot.
2-ply
'Collision Course' Pigeonroof Studios
100% Superwash Merino
4.2 oz.
This yarn ended up being the most squishy and impossibly soft yarn I have made yet. I think I've reached the point of the ideal amount of twist in my singles so I end up with these deliciously soft yarns. It's so deliciously tasty that I immediately cast on for a lacy baktus. Super squishy and delicious in garter stitch.
For my latest spin, I decided to try and see how fine I could go with this cormo sliver.
Turns out I can go preeeeeetty fine. The colour transitions in the singles made me want to chain-ply but I stuck to my guns of super fine yarn so stayed with the 2-ply plan.
2-ply
'Pinot Gris' Girls like Boys like Fiber
approx. 304.75 yards
100% Cormo
4 oz.
This yarn is laceweight in places and fingering in others. It's super soft, quite squishy and definitely plumped in the finishing. I'm going to try a Citron from this. Though I'm going to hold off the cast on until I've finished a few other projects.
Lately I've been trying a different method for finishing my yarns. Instead of simmering on the stove, I wash them in increasingly hot water (start with lukewarm and add hot gradually so that the fibres aren't shocked into fulling themselves). It works well for my attention span and the result seems to be equally set as the simmering method. That way I only have to wait for the yarn to dry. With the summer heat we're having, things are drying MUCH faster.
This yummy BFL silk blend really liked to stick to my clothes while spinning. What is it about silk blends that make the fibres stick to everything?
I love the barber pole effect that happens even in the singles of this yarn. And they made a nice squishy 2-ply yarn.
2-ply
'Delish' Pigeonroof Studios
75% Blue Faced Leicester, 25% Silk
4.5 oz.
Next I got the next installment of the always fabulous CosySpins Falkland Fibre Club. I'm really developing a fondness for this fibre. No matter what, the yarn stays squishy, springy and awesome. It always plumps during the finishing and even sometimes during the plying.
The club offering was 2 related colourways braided together. I was really excited to spin it up but had to think of how I was going to treat the colours.
I ended up spinning each colour as a separate single, then plying them together.
2-ply
Fibre Club for May
'Pacific mixed match' CosySpins
100% Falkland
4 oz.
The colours really blended together nicely in the plying. In some spots are pretty much solid. The green ended up being longer than the blue, so I Andean plied what remained on the bobbin. I like how well that works out and that you still end up with one skein. The yarn is squishy and soft and super pretty.
As soon as this delicious superwash merino showed up in my mailbox, I knew I had to spin it right away. Soooooooo soft. And I was really interested how the colours would work out in the spinning.
Turns out they turned out to be awesome! Again with the super cool barber poling in the singles. This time creating really interesting blends of colour. This would make a very interesting singles yarn—if you're into that sort of thing. I have yet to try making a balanced singles yarn. Maybe one of these days I'll give it a shot.
2-ply
'Collision Course' Pigeonroof Studios
100% Superwash Merino
4.2 oz.
This yarn ended up being the most squishy and impossibly soft yarn I have made yet. I think I've reached the point of the ideal amount of twist in my singles so I end up with these deliciously soft yarns. It's so deliciously tasty that I immediately cast on for a lacy baktus. Super squishy and delicious in garter stitch.
For my latest spin, I decided to try and see how fine I could go with this cormo sliver.
Turns out I can go preeeeeetty fine. The colour transitions in the singles made me want to chain-ply but I stuck to my guns of super fine yarn so stayed with the 2-ply plan.
2-ply
'Pinot Gris' Girls like Boys like Fiber
approx. 304.75 yards
100% Cormo
4 oz.
This yarn is laceweight in places and fingering in others. It's super soft, quite squishy and definitely plumped in the finishing. I'm going to try a Citron from this. Though I'm going to hold off the cast on until I've finished a few other projects.
Lately I've been trying a different method for finishing my yarns. Instead of simmering on the stove, I wash them in increasingly hot water (start with lukewarm and add hot gradually so that the fibres aren't shocked into fulling themselves). It works well for my attention span and the result seems to be equally set as the simmering method. That way I only have to wait for the yarn to dry. With the summer heat we're having, things are drying MUCH faster.
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