Spinning Blues

A couple of years ago, I agreed to do a knit along with out knitting group.  We were going to start at the first of the year, 2013, but my accident interrupted me and I was unable to knit with the group.  I had, however, dyed up and spun a BUNCH of yarn in blue/violet/white and grey.

Once dyed, it had to dry so my porch railing was put to good use.  I love how it is all stringy and clingy when wet, but then gets all puffy and soft as it dries.  You can see a little of that in the picture... the ones on the right are wet while the ones on the left have started to dry.

Once dried, the fun began.  The roving braids were so pretty it was kind of hard to start breaking them down for spinning.  For this project, I had broken the roving into 4 ounce packs.  For spinning, I pulled each braid apart lengthwise into 4 quarters.    I spun two types of yarn... the one on top in the picture was spun very thin and then made into a 3-ply using the Navajo ply or chain ply technique.  It is a very relaxing method to use and gave me a yarn that kept the colors generally together.  

The second type of yarn was spun making two slightly thicker singles and these were then plied together.  Because the length of each color on the singles was not controllable, when plied together, the color interplay between the two singles in the ply was varied and random, giving a more variegated look.

So I ended up missing the knit along, but once I was ready to start knitting again, I decided to try a top down, seamless sweater pattern I had never tried before.  But at this point, I was fascinated with the concept of knit-on-below.  I loved the idea of vertical stripes using the (relatively) solid 3-ply yarn as one 'color' and the more variegated yarn as my second color.  For some reason, the picture of the knitting had turned itself and I can't figure out how to flip it back.  The color (top) is to the left and the stripes are vertical, not horizontal.    Needless to say, trying a new pattern and a new technique had been a challenge, but it has been fun.  I am at the point of putting in sleeves, so I will post pictures of that when it is finally done.

I have had several people fall in love with the colors though, so I am currently in the process of spinning more for several people.  Once friend needed 3 pounds. If you have ever wondered what three pounds of dyeing wool looks like, here you go... a picture of the dye bundles (I went with 6 ounce dye bundles), drying (took TWO railings, this time) and the spinning singles... she wants all of it in the navajo ply so, LOTS of spinning singles... heh.  I am about half way done on this three pounds and getting ready to dye another pound for someone else.  She wants 'bulky' so that spinning should do quickly :)