I elected not to participate in Tour de Fleece this year. I was sure I would not have time. But you’d never know it to see the recent products of my wheel.

Wedding Yarn

I spun the singles for this lovely red/pink/purple yarn in the days before my wedding. It was my procrastination project. I like to think that it’s full of anticipation.  I plied the large hank just before we left for the honeymoon. The small hank was plied from the remaining singles when we returned. Amazingly, I managed not to over-ply the pre-wedding hank, despite all the expectant tension.

A Hand-Carding Experiment Gone Surprisingly Right

On my honeymoon, while at Black Sheep Gathering, I purchased a couple of ounces of  dyed and un-dyed Romney locks. I used them to teach myself to card rolags. Then, a few days later, I spun them. The resulting red/green/brown yarn was…interesting. Festive, I suppose. Casting about in my stash for something to tone it down I found some singles I had spun out of lovely silver Romney/Perendale.  The result is more successful than I had imagined. Through the color-toning influence of plying I managed to turn something offensive into something quite pretty.

Crisp and Crunchy Yarn

Asparagus is an apt name for this colorway and a completely appropriate metaphor for this fiber. Wensleydale is such a delight to spin. Crisp and wiry between my fingers, with a little bit of soft snap to it, just like a fresh stalk of asparagus. I’m not sure chain ply was the best choice for this yarn, but live and learn. I shall use it to weave and thus erase some of the over-twisting.

Pleased as Punch

I’m just tickled about how this yarn turned out. After my last massive, fine-weight, 2-ply experiment, I made it my goal to try to ply this yarn more tightly. I wanted something more solid, less likely to be split by needles or to drift apart when hit by a breeze.  As I took hanks off the niddy-noddy I grew concerned that I’d over-corrected and plied too tightly. But I’d heard that many yarns can be relaxed and corrected through washing so I decided to put a stopper in my anxiety and give H2O a chance. I soaked the hanks in hot water with a bit of Eucalan, then smacked them about on the side of the bathtub to subdue them, then hung them to dry. A hot-darn, it sure worked.

I love the look of this colorway. It reminds me of the Abe Lincoln statue at UW-Madison: the one every student is supposed to try to kiss when drunk. People used to tease each other about having green on their teeth.