Spinning!

A while back I showed off my new wheel, who I have since named "Ashley", but I never did show you what she can do.

The first yarns off my new wheel

The fibre is superwash merino from Yarn Pirate, in the colourway "Culture Club". I split it into 3 equal(ish) parts and spun 3 bobbins up and then started the 3-ply. I ended up with 2 skeins of 3 ply totally 236yards and about 58 yards of 2 ply. It's really soft and lovely.

Because the bobbins on the Ashford are smallish they fill up quickly. I like spinning on it, so for my next project I spun the singles on Ashley and did the plying on Charlotte.

Which resulted in this yumminess

349 yards of merino. The fibre for this was a gift from a friend and it's so pretty. I think this would make really great mittens.

One of the groups I participate in on Ravelry did a swap that coincided with the Tour de Fleece, which is a challenge for spinners to spin every day the Tour de France rides. The swap we did paired spinners with those who don't spin, and the spinners spin up 8oz of fibre into yarn to send to their non-spinner, and in return they get 8oz of fibre. Plus goodies. It's a good swap.

For my partner I asked local artist and belly dancer extraordinaire Uberwench to make something special. I told her I was aiming to spun 4oz of a semi-solid and 4oz of a multi coloured and then ply them together. I told her my partner's colour preferences and sent her off to her dye pots.

This is what she came up with

So pretty...and soft too, a lovely superwash merino.

I spun up the singles on Ashley, resulting in this loveliness

I got busy plying on Charlotte, and the resulting yarns are just amazing

As is typical with my spinning I had way more of one ply than I did of the other, so I divided the leftover multi and got about 189 yards. The 2 colours plied together yielded a whopping 945 yards. Depending on what she knits with it, she could end up up with some pretty subtle striping effect. I love this yarn, it was really hard to send off. But my swap recipient loves it too, and I have been assured that I can get more if I really really want it.

I also started spinning a 16oz lot of a bamboo/merino I bought years ago from The Unique Sheep on Charlotte. I love both wheels, and I am trying to get more spinning time in.

Which is good, because we've just added a fibre-bearing animal to our house hold. Not a sheep though, because even I can admit that would be crazy.

Meet Beatrix MacPoufybottom

She's a 5 month old black english angora. She's super soft and very loveable. I cannot wait to spin her fibre.

Look at those ears though!

No really, look at them!

Awesome.