Little Skeins

Back when I bought some Gaslights Dyeworks fibers for spinning and gifting, Jacki was nice enough to throw in a couple of pretty little puffballs for some play fun. Like the bigger shipment, these puffballs have shiny bits and are a mix of different fibers.

I thought I would try them out on my spindle and quickly made up my singles. Yes, you are looking at singles wrapped on my very glamorous storage system: toilet paper rolls! Hey, the mantra is Reduce-Reuse-Recycle, isn't it?

To maximize the yardage I wanted to ply these with some silk threads. Last week I ventured over to Habu to see what I could scrounge up. Later that evening I plied both little bits into yarn and was surprised by my results.

First, the little blue puffball got plied with a blueish gray stainless steel yarn. This is my first time working with stainless and I was very pleasantly surprised by the smoothness and the sparkle of the thread. Once plied into the single, it added a whole new layer of shine to the yarn. This little skein is only 48 yards, 18 wpi. I like this one very much and will play with this kind of combination in the future.

The second little puffball got plied with a deep red merino thread/yarn. It's very loosely plied (further evidence I need to practice the plying part of spinning). I'm not sure I love the result, but it is soft, and very nice in the hand. If I were to do this again, I might not go for such a strong color but honestly there weren't that many choices in the sale bin.

I yielded 166 yds, 28 wpi with this batch. Sometimes I look at it and I really like it. Sometimes not. This one deserves a little knitted swatch to see how it looks worked up.

In both instances, these little skeins leave me thinking (yearning) I need to learn weaving. In fact the weaving bug is starting to get up under my skin alot with the yarns I am making. I think I can fit a rigid heddle loom in my work area. Hmmmm......