Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Handspun Rundown

Oy, it's been a while since I went through this stuff.

Handspun Spritely Goods

Handspun Spritely Goods

This is a Spritely Goods batt, merino and firestar. It's 1.8 ounces (about 50 grams) spun to 190 yards two-ply. That's solid fingering sock weight. Can I get a hell yeah? It's some of my best spinning to date - and it's already out of my hands and on the way to someone else's. It can be hard to say goodbye to your children....

Natural hand-dyed and handspun Natural hand-dyed close-up

This is three of my mini-rovings from my Natural Dyeing - Colors from Nature class. There's about one ounce total, 60 yards, of a three-ply yarn. One roving is dyed with henna (the lightest vanilla color), one is dyed with brazilwood (the lighter pink color) and one with red sandalwood (the sort of orangey-salmon color). They blended well, I thought, so I figured rather than having roving I couldn't do anything with, I'd ply them together and see what I came up with. The two remaining rovings are red and purple....I'm still trying to decide if I should give that a shot. Could be pretty godawful garish...

Hand-dyed and Handspun Hand-dyed close-up

Mmmm...one of my favorites so far. I didn't quite get the colors I wanted (you could probably guess - I was going for pink/cream/brown and I got more pink/cream/teastain tan), but I think it'll be great as a hat/booties for one of the impending baby girls. This stuff is S-O-F-T. 70% merino, 20% silk, 10% angora...delicious. Two ounces, 150 yards of two-ply. The roving came from I See Spots Farm, which is where I got a LOT of my roving when I was at SAFF. This was a fantastic bit of fiber.

So was this:

Black Llama handspun Black Llama close-up

Pure black llama, soft as merino, silky as....well, silk. I loved spinning it, and I hate to give it up, but this is definitely Pal-worthy. Once again, two ounces, once again 140 yards in two-ply. (Anyone else getting tired of DK weight?) The roving also came from I See Spots.

This last one was mostly just for fun. I ended up doing something a little different than I had planned, due to the nature of the roving (Corriedale/silk, kinda....chunky?). It was a kit with these beautiful little rovings, and a few packets of mohair and angora. I ended up with something akin to Ozark Handspun.

Handspun Novelty Handpun novelty close-up

There's 2.2 ounces, 75 yards (look Ma, no DK!) to this single - plying it would have been absurd. The light is making this a bit more crazy-carnival colored than it really is - think more like autumn leaves. I bought it because it reminded me exactly of the view out my parents' window in October:

Fall colors

They have a tree right at the end of the driveway that's red and orange and magenta in fall. Man I love it there......