Fledgling Spinner

With Swatches!

So the Knit Witch roving in Vatican that I was spinning is now all done. I got a couple of 100+ yards of squishy two ply. It is a funny thing with two ply: two bobbins full of singles equal one bobbin with two ply and one with the end of whichever length of single was shorter. The math never makes sense to me….I mean it does. I get that I am stretching one of them a little more or when I predrafted one might have been thicker and ended up longer. I think it is the reason I favor Navajo ply though since that uses exactly that you have on the bobbin as it chains back on itself.

When I looked at the first bobbin with the sad leavings of the first skein of two ply, I figured I would save it for sampling. I would knit a swatch with the single, knit another with the finished two ply yarn, and a third swatch would come from a Navajo ply piece chained up from the other left-behind single.

My results were a fun, albeit kinda obvious now that I think on it, exploration into how the color play across the swatches for each:

The largest is the single ply, the so-called “energized” knitting that some books show. I am not a big fan of how the singles knit up, but it could just be me. The colors on that one obviously had the longest runs.

Looking at the two ply on the left and the Navajo on the right, I have to say I am glad at the way the two ply turned out. It seems to have softer borders or transitions between the colors (I am not sure what the technical term is). The same colors seem more distinct on the three ply and, with the “chain” in the Navajo, the color runs are more pronounced or concentrated to me. I can understand why the fingerless gloves with the Tuscany turned out the way they did. (Still love these colors).

In other news, I am being a button procrastinator. I don’t have  a large vat of buttons and these two seemed the best choices for the Sideways Spencer. I am kinda leaning towards the purple-y shell looking ones.

So I recently ordered some delightful dyed superwash and it arrived yesterday. The colors were even better in person!

KnitWitch Roving

They are the “Tuscany” and “Vatican” colors from the Knit Witch’s shop. I saw the Knit Witch at SAFF last year and loved the sock yarn I bought, so I have been coveting more of her things since then. So fate was kind enough to step in and make me the lucky winner in a random drawing for a gift certificate to her shop!

So confession time – after the alpaca I have spun (I am almost done with the third fleece – the fawn colored one),  the Louet merino silk bag I spun up (pictures coming soon), some merino/silk roving my mom gave me that started the whole “want to learn to spin” thing in the first place (yes, those pictures coming soon too!) and a couple of random samples and one BFL braid from SAFF, I have never actually knit with any of my finished yarn.

There. I said it.

I am so scared that:

- whatever I make will fall apart if my spun yarn turns out to be subpar.

-  that I will run out of wool for the project and can’t get more of it.

- that the yarn will split and be awful

I am also reluctant to part with the cuteness of the finished skeins!

Last night I changed all of that. The rovings were so yummy that I put what I have learned thus far into play.

1. Break off a manageable length of roving.

2. Split it lengthwise to a workable thickness.

3. Predraft the fibers, being careful not to pull them apart.

(that’s the spinning “predrafteddon’tmesswiththis” basket)

4. Relax and spin, being careful to test it to make sure it won’t break.

5. Stop before you get too into spinning the singles.

6. Navajo ply a sample because you remember somewhere reading that a three-ply was good for socks. Oh, and it is supposed to preserve color changes a little better?

7. Wind off the bobbin. Make a skein. Knit on needles……

I am the happiest spinner, ever.