Pretty Fibres

After a bit of a rummage through my roving stash this weekend, I came across this lovely hand painted roving by 'All the pretty fibres'. I think I showed you it last year when I bought it but I didn't want to spin it straight away till I had got a little more practice in spinning. So, okay, I haven't spent that much time spinning, only on  Jelly Jelly and black coffee but I think as those were both plied yarns, I may try to spin a consistantly even single. That 'consistantly even' bit is going to be the challenge:-)

When I learned to spin, yonks ago, it was on a traditional wheel using rolags and all the spinning techniques seemed really easy. Now, on my modern louet with roving, it seems that all my previous skill has gone out the window - sigh:-) I still have some samples of those earlier yarns so I looked them out and although they weren't as super duper as I'd remembered, they still seemed more competently spun  - with even tension throughout. Different wheel and tension? Different technique of using roving? Whatever, this is the wheel I have and the roving I've stashed so A+B has to equal a decent C!!

So I've spent some of the weekend, splitting some roving into even slivers. Well, as even as I can get them. Another area that could do with more patience! Now, I'm going to make sure the thickness throughout each sliver is as even as possible as I think this is where I slipped up a little last time and got a few thicker areas. And when I hit a thicker area, I changed my  technique to thin it out as I went and it went a bit pearshaped regarding evenness - hey-ho! If I spun a bit more often I really would learn from my mistakes quicker;-))

I'm also interested in seeing how this particular roving will spin up. There is a lot of length to each section of colour so if I average 3 x length of colour on the roving as the length of the spun yarn, that's a lot of each colour. It's definitely going to be stripey! I know I could choose to spin the roving a different way to change this effect but I want to see how this one plays out first. If I like the effect enough, I may get some undyed roving to play with and expand my dyeing into fibres as well.....

Roving eye...

Ah, knitting, do not despair! Although I still love to knit there has been a calling in me recently to spin. My spinning wheel is just sitting there saying, 'remember me?' And I slink past feeling guilty that I have spent the money on more sock yarn than buying some lovely fibre. But that is all to end! I finally resisted the yarn urge and went for fibre instead. And what lovely fibres they are. These are the online photos from each etsy shop as I couldn't wait for them to arrive before showing you them. But hopefully they will arrive soon.

This first one is from Fibreoptic's Etsy shop and is called 'Black Coffee' - a colour mixture of expresso, coffee, mocha, and a little caramel. Yum yum. She does roving and yarns in such gorgeous colourways that your hands start itching to spin just looking at them! I just love the subtlety of the colour palette and I'm excited to see how it spins up. Kimber at Fibreoptic was so helpful and friendly in helping me get what I needed. A big thank you!

This next one is from All the pretty fibres Etsy shop. Heike also sells her yarns and rovings on Ebay and her website needleworks pleasure, from whom I bought some lovely hand dyed yarn a while back. She has been ever so helpful in giving me advice about how much roving to buy etc. I haven't really spun seriously for a long time - read over ten years. It is maybe a tad more than that, but I'm trying not to think about where the time goes and how it's gone 'whoosh' all of a sudden.

I tend to have little bursts of carding and spinning and then drift away. But this time it is serious! I'll have to get some practicing in before touching the nice stuff but after that there are socks to be knitted with my own spun yarn! (well, that is if I can get an even enough yarn...it's been a while)

So knitting, you are not being abandoned. Just think of it as a means to getting some lovely yarn to knit with. Knitting and spinning working in harmony:-) Of course, you realise this could start me experimenting with dyeing roving.....