I've been spending a lot of time these last few days with fibres - specifially my new fibre from Fibreoptics called Jelly Jelly. When I saw this, it just cried out to be mine:-) The colours are just so rich and deep - and very fuchsia pink:-) I always have a hard time choosing just one roving in her etsy shop and of course, just after I found this one and bought it, I spied another scrumptious one! I have to stay away unless I am serious about buying fibres!!!
Being a strong pink, I had a hard time trying to capture the true colour. The top pic is the closest as the sun has lightened my pic of the roving coiled. This came as a thinner sliver of roving. I didn't realise when I bought it but that doesn't matter too much to me. The only difference is that being thinner, the same weight of fibre makes the length of roving so much longer!!!! So splitting this into thinner strips has been much more time consuming than normal. The strips just go on and on.......
In theory I wanted to split this 16 times. Once quartered, each quartered ball should be split into four for the thickness I want. In theory. In fact, the first two balls went a bit pear shaped and split into one thin and one thick so I could only get three instead of four splits altogether. But, the last two were fine. I like to think this means I'm getting the knack!! If you count the balls, there are more than 16 - I know. I don't quite know how I managed that either:-) I think I tried to split one even thinner and got left with a few half balls but I'll use them first to practice so nothing wasted!
Anyway, a bit at a time, the roving is now split, ready to spin. I have to draft it slightly to ensure each ball is of even thickness - which I already know is NOT the case with some of them! I'm thinking that I should wind them around something before spinning as the balls may not unwind evenly or more probably will grip the fibres and make them snap continually now the slivers are so thin. A few toilet rolls should do the trick:-)) And yes, I am sad enough to have been collecting them for just this emergency!! Tip courtesy of Yarn Harlot:-)So between dyeing and knitting, some fibre may be spun this week .......
And she spins too ... I say wistfully!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful. I can understand the lure.
Well, I'm trying to get back into it. I'm not sure my spinning efforts would be classed as remotely knitable! But I'm trying! - although it may take me a while as I keep getting distracted by dyeing and knitting:-)
ReplyDeleteIn my mind nothing beats knitting, although I would love to try dyeing. You are definitely whetting my appetite. Spinning seems like a lot of work, and didn't someone prick their finger and go to sleep for 100 years or something like that? Now I could use more sleep, but 100 years is ridiculous!
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