And So It Begins.......

I've been hoping to really follow my spinning adventures a bit more in depth - tracking my progress and process and exploring my methods and techniques. I'll begin with this lovely wool.

This is some lovely hand-painted Finn, dyed by HelloYarn, in the "Bruised" colorway. This is a plump 2-ply, yielding about 420 yards, at about 15wpi or so. This wool *literally* spun itself - I split the roving into 4 similar weight strips with minimal pre-drafting. To set the twist, I soaked the wool in a piping hot bowl of water with a dash of woolwash for about 40 minutes (I admit, I forgot about it), then gave it a shock of cold and left it to hang dry. It was balanced right from the get-go! Shortly after I learned how to spin, I joined 2 Fiber-of-the-Month clubs. I thought it would be the best way to try out new fibers and new colors. I've found it to be a wonderful chance to try out new things, and I look forward to my fiber shipments every month.

The above image is for the December installment of the Spunky Eclectic club - in the colorway "Champagne". I split this roving into 2 strips and spun them up fairly thin. As singles I found them to be fairly muddied and boring; I was afraid this would worsen with plying. But it didn't! the plying seemed to really open up the colors and give it some body and life and sparkle. This is about 360 yards.

I'm desperately trying to do some catching up with the fiber piles around here, so I've been aggressive about spinning every day. I'll be cleaning out the bins of handspun as well and posting some on etsy.