Sunshine on a Clear Day...Handspun Yarn

I've just finished plying my new handspun yarn...I plied the single novelty yarn that I made on my blending board with a Saffron merino top. It's about 111 yards.

I have it measured and tied up, now to set the twist, let it dry and find a pattern that will show it off.

My New Fiber Blending Board & Inspiration From Art

I received my new fiber blending board last week and finally had some time yesterday to experiment with it.  For those of you who may not know a blending board is a piece of carding cloth with many, many "teeth" and it's used to blend different colours and fibres to make rolags which can then be spun into yarn.

I took my inspiration for my colour palette from a wonderful print that I recently purchased from Danny Phillips on Etsy...this picture just makes me smile!

So I went through my stash of fibre and came up with some wool roving, silk throwsters, and a novelty yarn that would match.

Below are a few pictures of how the blending board works and the yarn I'm spinning from the rolags.

...stay tuned....

Discovering the Joy of Fibre

I've done a bit of needlefelting over the past couple of years, mostly round beads to incorporate into jewellery, and so I've accumulated a stash of small balls of brightly coloured roving (combed sheep's wool).

Just before Christmas I purchased a drop spindle to try spinning some of this roving into yarn.  My family and I went on a fabulous trip to Peru over the holidays and the Andean women are expert spinners and weavers.  I was hooked! I bought a whole lot of alpaca fleece to comb and spin into yarn.

 This is one of the Peruvian women in our hotel, with her lamb...that's milk in the Coke bottle.

 This is a display of some of the plants and insects that the natural dyes are made from.

I also purchased some natural Corriedale roving from an Etsy friend, Uli of KnittersNook, and spun my first roving into a chunky yarn single.  Using the Andean method I plied it back onto the spindle..woohoo!!

Well, excited as I was, this little bit only measured 16 yards...not enough for knitting anything yet. So....spin, spin, spin.
I bought some acid dyes from Dharma Trading Company and dyed my natural yarn to a rich brick red.

Finally, I knit a simple hat using a free pattern from Ravelry, crocheted a scalloped edge around the brim, made a chainstitch flower and a matching handmade lampwork glass button, and voila! ....my first, handspun, handyed project was complete.