In which I potentially bite off more than I can chew, so to speak

Friday evening I finished spinning a 4 oz chunk of the alpaca while waiting to go see the Transformers (btw: awesome).


I think I need bigger bobbins

I started plying it while waiting for the (very late) boy. Why do women always get the bad rep for not being on time? ehem. Anyway...

I finished plying it Saturday morning



4oz Alpaca, 2 ply, approx. 224yd/105m. It turned out to be a very even approx. worsted weight. I'm really pleased with it. Not sure what it will become yet, but I have more to spin so we'll see... I'm thinking maybe a vest or something.

Saturday morning it was 20C/68F at about 7am. By 10 it was 30C/86F and sunny and humid. So, of course, I decided to prep some wool for spinning. Who wouldn't? I didn't get signed up for the Tour de Fleece* but I had planned to try this for a while. I have about 24oz of wool roving (unknown breed) from Custom Woolen Mills. I plan to spin it up into enough for a sweater.

Not sure if I've bitten off too much here...

I dyed all the wool at once by just setting the pots outside in the sun (thus not heating up the house too much).


I was glad to see the color turned out in this picture. For some reason it is extremely difficult for my camera to capture. Before dyeing I split the roving into approx. 2oz strips. I used a mix of forest green, denim blue and a little bit of a light brown. I don't think I would have been able to produce this color if I had tried for it, but amazingly it is exactly what i had been imagining. It's an almost solid deep teal/blue/green. The slight variations in the intensity blend well together, if I do say so myself. Especially since it's nearly accidental... ehem.

I was a bit impatient to get going on the spinning, I wanted to do a test to see how I was going to spin it.



ehem.

By late afternoon I was able to start spinning (who are you calling impatient? huh?)(haha) and spun up one of the strips.


2oz, approx. 114yards/104m. It's fairly even, which I was happy about and about a worsted-ish weight.

One down, 11 to go...

One more shot of yarn p*rn before I go try to cool off:




*I was going to link to the Tour de Fleece site but a quick Google search turned up more than one Tour de Fleece. Who knew?