Ode to Handspun

September 29th, 2006

OK, so maybe my handspun yarn isn’t quite good enough yet for a dedicatory ode. However, I’m finding it much more interesting than some of the knitting updates that I’ve been avoiding on this blog lately (ahem…chevron scarf).

I’ve done a little dyeing lately on my handspun that’s just been sitting in my knitting stuffs basket. For the longest time I couldn’t decide what to do with it, and when I did decide I couldn’t motivate myself to be excited enough to knit it. I finally realized that perhaps dyeing it a more interesting color would make things more interesting.

I don’t know what I think about the color. I can’t get over it even though it’s a perfectly good color, and suits my color tastes exactly. I think perhaps I’m feeling disappointed because it isn’t exactly what I expected from it. I wanted a warmer color, and less green. I used a gold dye (the same I used for the kri-kerchief yarn) and the results are totally different. I’m trying to decide if I should just get over the color, or do another dye session with a wee tiny bit of red to make it more brown.

The colors in the next project are certainly nothing to complain about. Just about every vibrant shade of green one could want for is in this beautifully dyed ball of roving I recently bought. Since I now realize that I actually have spending money, I impulsively decided to start on my next spinning project. Thank you Maine Woods Yarn.

I must admitt I was rather discouraged when I started spinning this stuff. It was so much more difficult than it was last time, what with all the unevenness and pulling apart. I was worried that the small amount of skill I had developed vanished in the months that I haven’t been spinning. Fortunately for me, after a little break I was able to work up some spinning mojo and begin to produce relatively satisfactory yarn.

I think that I was a little tense when I first started with this roving. The hand holding the yarn was holding a bit too tight, and I was going too fast. Once I slowed down the process a bit and held things a bit more loosely, it was smooth sailing (mostly!). I can’t wait to decide what to knit out of this!

To Ply or Not to Ply? Oh, and I almost forgot to mention. One of the reasons I was avoiding knitting my first handspun is because it was so terribly uneven. I made it uneven on purpose in some places to get a feel for different thicknesses, but that made it difficult to want to use. I had a great idea a few nights ago to ply the two ends together, since the start end was a bit thinner than the finish end. I’m much happier with it now, as the thinnest parts aren’t nearly so thin.

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