Saturday spinning update – move over Rumpelstiltskin!

For a month I toiled to do justice to Joan‘s golden merino/nylon batts by spinning them into thin little singles. My goal was to end up with a fingering weight 3 ply yarn. This week I finally got to see how that all turned out. I feel a little like Rumpelstiltskin*.

I did my plying on an improvised lazy kate made from the box the fiber came in and 3 of my grandmother’s straight needles.

After much work, one skein on my homemade plying stick looked like this:

The fact that plying these skeins took hours and hours gave me hope that I’d hit the kind of yardage I’d expected – something in the 375 yard + per 100 g range.  I still need to wash & reskein these lovelies, but I’m content. All the pictures here are from skein 1 (from batts 3, 4, and 5) because I didn’t finish skein 2 (from batts 1, 2, and 6) until just now-ish and there’s no good natural light. I’ll get back to you next week on exact weights & yardage, but I’m estimating it to be in the 400 yard range for about 85 – 90 grams for each skein.

Here’s both a Canadian and a US closeup, for those who can’t do the conversion

Success!

And have a look at how rich this yarn is, how the different shades are all there & make it something lovely & complex.

I will eventually knit with this yarn, but I need a little while longer to admire it as it is.

* except that I didn’t start with straw and I don’t want anyone’s firstborn child