Spinning some art

When I first got interested in spinning the first book I got was Lexi Boeger's Intertwined. I hadn't even got a spindle yet but the yarns in this book were so cool and unusual that the book was great just as a coffee table book. I checked out the art yarn spinners group (RavLink) on Ravelry and loved everything I saw there. People like Studioloo, Insubordiknit and Velma Like Velvet have made some really inspiring stuff.

Since I'm getting better at normal spinning I thought I might have enough skill to attempt an art yarn without it turning out looking like something the cat got at.



I got a lovely batt from Rockpoolcandy for my birthday but was too scared to spin it in case i made a mess of it. I finally decided to core spin it, this involves drafting the yarn sideways and wrapping it a core yarn. Ask The Bellwether has a great tutorial about how to do this. It turned out well for a first go, the batt was really lovely and I hope I did it justice.

I loved the results of the core spun wool I decided to try out another technique from Intertwined this time supercoils. Having loads of alpaca fleece to play with is handy for trying out things like this. I had this green merino which was too green for me so I carded some of that in with the alpaca. Mixed with white alpaca it turned a pleasing minty green colour. I also used pieces of lilac merino for the coil parts.



Supercoils are fun and look fantastic when the yarn is done but they take ages to do. The yarn also has a normal part to it as well. When I finished the coil part I navajo plied the remaining single. I'll knit it up into a scarf so there will be normal fabric then all the mad supercoiled parts.

Here's some more spinning. This time normal stuff. It's this merino I got from Scottish Fibres, it's lovely and soft but I wasn't so keen on the colour of the roving. Magically when spun up and navajo plied the colours mixed and I now like it. I think this yarn would make a nice pair of mittens or a hat. It's worsted weight and there's about 84 metres of it.



More photos here.

One of my crochet projects and I have broken up. The seasilk shawl and I just weren't getting on. I wasn't sure if we were compatible for the long term partnership needed to finish it. If we could just get through a couple more pattern repeats then my doubts over whether the yarn suited the pattern would go away. My feelings about the drape not showing off the silk well enough weren't real were they? There were too many doubts, I wasn't sure. I started looking at other patterns, ones with more drape, ones written especially for seasilk. So we split. It was for the best. The shawl was frogged before I was too far in, too committed to it to turn back. The yarn is now being turned into Montego Bay Scarf.

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