Handspun Friday - SAFF BFL

This yarn was spun from one of my first fiber purchases. I bought this hand dyed top while I was at SAFF last year just after I purchased my spindle and before I really knew anything about spinning. I love the color combinations in this and I also like the idea of the long color repeats.; I don't see that very often.

I had the idea that I would try and spin a self striping yarn from this roving. If I hadn't tried to make a two ply and left the yarn as a single I would have had a self striping yarn. But I couldn't leave well enough alone and I decided to go for a two ply yarn. So I divided the yarn into two long strips. You can see those strips in the photo below.

I spun each strip onto a separate bobbin starting with the orange colored end. I figured I had split the fiber evenly enough and if I spun everything in the same order I would end up with a self striping yarn after plying the two separate singles together.

That actually worked until I got about halfway through plying and I could see the colors starting to swirl and barber pole together. I know I didn't get the fiber separated exactly even and that resulted in certain colored sections being longer than others. So the results were that about half of the yarn will stripe with a single color and the second half of the skein will have a barber pole effect. I'm actually looking forward to knitting this up and seeing what happens.

I do know that I could have used the Navajo plying technique and been a lot more successful in keeping my colors together during plying. But I decided not to try it for a couple of reasons. The first being I've never done it before and the second is that the result of Navajo plying is a three ply yarn. I would have ended up with a lot less yardage that way. I wish I had more, but I only had three ounces. I thought that was a lot at the time I bought the fiber - but as it turns out it really isn't. I'm not sure what I'll knit with this yet. I'm thinking either a hat or a little bag to hang on my wheel and hold all my little tools and spinning doo dads.

Geddesburg Handspun Yarn
Content: Bluefaced Leicester
Fiber Source: River’s Edge Weaving Studio
purchased at SAFF 2007
Skein Weight: 3 ounces
Skein Length: 118 yards
WPI: 11
Spinning Ratio: 10 to 1
Plying Ratio: 9 to 1
Other Details: 2-ply, hand wash