Just a bit of handspun yarn

The trouble with spinning is that whilst you’re using up your fibre stash, you’re just creating more yarn stash. I hadn’t quite realised how bad things were getting until I opened the cupboard where my handspun lives to add the one I spun up yesterday, and half of it fell out on me. So I pulled it all out to have a look.

Just a bit there then. The row in front is the ones I’m most fond of, but it’s mostly pretty (although there are a couple that may be candidates for overdyeing when I get round to it, the green and yellow superwash BFL being a prime candidate – it’s lovely and soft, but really not my colours (it was a club yarn, so not my choice)).

It doesn’t look any less from directly above.

The trouble is that the 100g braids of fibre look so lovely, but really there are only so many projects you can make with 100g of yarn, and I have several pairs of handspun socks and a few shawls and scarves already. I do have plans for some of it – the green and yellow and orange ball at the bottom right is probably going to become a Citrus shawl at some point, largely because it’s citrus coloured, the pink at the bottom left is a 3ply DK weight, and I have another 200g of the fibre still to spin, then it’s hopefully going to be a cardigan. There’s a couple more pairs of socks to come, and a cowl and a fair isle tam and matching mitts with the two pinky-purply skeins in the middle of the bottom row, but the rest is just a bit lonesome really, although I might do some weaving with some of it at some point.

On the vague off-chance that anyone’s interested, all the yarns are detailed on my Ravelry handspun page.

This is the skein that started me off, I plied it up last night and gave it a good wash. I could tell I was getting thinner as I went, and there was quite a lot left on the second bobbin, so my new Andean plying tool got a proper use this time. It took quite a long time to wind it on (although not as long as it would have taken to wind it round my hand and then try to get the circulation going in my finger again…)

It worked beautifully, and I got quite a few more metres from it.

I do tend to ply quite tightly, so when I took the skein off the niddy noddy it did this. Although it didn’t actually shine, that’s just the camera flash.

But a good soak sorted it out, and a night draped over the radiator (unweighted) calmed it down nicely, now it hangs straight with no help at all.

The colours are quite subtle, they’re reminding me of rose petals that have dried and fallen off the flowers. I’m thinking it might make a shawl or scarf with a leaf motif on it. One day. There’s about 370m and it’s a fingering weight with occasional thick and thin bits (for texture!) so there should be enough.