Thursday, March 8

Spinning experiment

You know you're a hard core spinner when you look at yarn and all you can think about is spinning it!

Last summer, at a clearance sale I found 6 balls of Jumbo merino, a bulky weight single in blues and purples. I loved the color but the yarn was too heavy and there was only 33 yards in a skein. That's 9 ounces of yummy spinning fiber! So, I'm thinking, what would happen if I respun this to a weight I like? That's crazy. But, tempted by deep clearance prices, I bought it. It's been lurking in my stash until recently when I stumbled upon it again.

I've already spun 3 skeins of it into singles. LOL! It's not that difficult to work with because the original yarn didn't have a lot of twist in it. I pull a length out, wrap a rubber band around the skein, and hold the yarn end and let the twist come out. If I need to remove a little more twist, I roll the yarn over my thigh before I respin it.

I skeined and washed what I've finished to see what would happen to my new singles. There is too much twist in them so I'll either have to ply it or run it back through the wheel to remove some of the twist. The latter option is calling my name. I'd really like to try knitting with singles. If the experiment fails, I can always rip it out and ply it.

Happy spinning!

1 comment:

Jessica said...

What a great idea, Vicki! I love those colors, too.