No, you’re not mistaken, you’ve seen this title before. 😀 Today however, instead of a WIP you’re getting a finished object! As I told you last week, Tour De Fleece 2021 met me with the same finish, finish, finish energy I had in the #casualcraftalong I hosted on Instagram and this spin finish is as a result of that energy. Before the Tour started I got all my spinning projects — wheel spun, supported and suspended spindles — and put them in my spinning basket. I’ve been methodically crossing them off my WIP list and it feels really good!
The nuns of Inglenook Fibers are phenomenal with color and blends. Cherry Blossoms At Night came to us by way of a fiber club series they planned in the first quarter of the year — Armchair Traveling. The concept was to imagine yourself, despite the pandemic, visiting countries around the world via your armchair through fiber. The series ran for 3 months in which participants received a batt, a braid, and a set of sticklebatts, each from a different country. There were inspiration pictures from each venue and these were used to create the fiber item. For the visits I received, a braid from Norway, sticklebatts from Peru and a batt from Japan aka Cherry Blossoms At Night.
As an aside: every crafter is unique with a different set of skills and although Ravelry is difficult for me to navigate since the change in the interface, I use it for notes sometimes looking at how spinners broke down items to create a finished spin object. One of the most frustrating things for me is when I see a lovely finished item, I go check the notes and boom — NOTHING!!! Not even the number of plies! Sooooooo frustrating!!!! So in addition to adding notes on my Ravelry page, this post will also serve as a breakdown of how I did the batt spin so others can see what I did and maybe, just maybe, learn from it.
Opened, the batt displayed 5 distinct colorways with soft transitions between each of them. I divided it according to those colorways trying my best to keep the transitions intact.
I then spindle spun each of the colorways. These singles were spun thin because I knew I wanted a make a 3 ply yarn. Additionally, since I planned to use the chain ply method to create the 3-ply yarn, I knew I had to spin the fiber thin enough to get a resulting 3 ply yarn of more than 200 yds.
After spinning each single, in order to create a single ply ball of one long continuous yarn, I joined the spins together.
Pro Tip: always leave a bit of fluff at the beginning and end of your spindle spins if joining. I leave about 1.5 to 2 inches of fluff so I have space to draft the fiber together when joining and still keep the integrity of the already spun yarn (allow the joins not to be made too thin or too thick)
After the single ply join, I make a chain ply ball — this video’s instructions are the ones that I connected with the most so this has become my technique for creating a chain ply ball.
After the chain ply ball, I spun the fiber on my Lendrum Double Treadle wheel for the gradient result below:
Project Details:
- Fiber weight: batt was 3.9 ozs.
- Dyer: Inglenook Fibers
- Fiber Composition: Corriedale fleece, merino, polwarth, silk, bamboo, silk noil, angelina.
- Fiber Attributes: carded with use of commerical dyes
- Spun on Kerry and Bosworth Spindles. Plied on Lendrum DT
- Single Spun: with Z twist
- Plied: with S twist
- First Pass: 690 yds of singles
- Skein Finish: chain plied
- Final Skein Total: 230 yds of 3 ply yarn
- Finished Object: for Tour De Fleece 2021
Corriedale by itself isn’t as soft as merino, but the merino and silk adds to the batt makes it deliciously soft. The Polwarth adds some bounce and the bamboo some drape. Some spinners don’t like to spin nepps, silk noils, angelina or firestar but presence of these makes spins interesting to me and my goal is always to spin them in such a way so that they add visual interest and not dominate the end result.
I hope your Tour De Fleece is going well and looking forward to catching up with all of your projects in today’s YOP blog hop. ❤
D'NALI 
oh wow. I am in absolute awe. It is truly stunning.
Thank you so very much! 😀
A beautiful yarn you’ve spun, thanks for sharing how it was constructed.
You’re welcome. I enjoyed making this gradient so much, I’m about to start another one after I complete my TDF ply. 😀
Beautiful spinning! Your notes are so detailed, as a beginning spinner I really enjoyed reading them. I must get better at making project notes.
Thank you Jen! I’m an intermediate spinner but if you need help at anytime, let me know. 😀
So beautiful!
Thank you! I appreciate your visit to my little bloggy corner of the net and your kind words re my spin. 😀
Wow. I love the detail of your notes and that yarn you spun is superb! Lovely idea to spin with fibre from different parts of the world and imagine you are there while spinning – a great pandemic project idea.
Yes, I think of all the IF clubs I’ve seen, this one was my favourite. Thank you for the yarn love. I initially thought of spinning it on one of my wheels but am glad I chose spindles. There was quite a meditative feel to this spin rather than trying to finish it fast on my wheel.
I’ve just swooned to death over that stunning yarn! It really is tremendously beautiful, and I feel like I could gush on and on about how much I love it. You did and amazing job!
Thanks for the expanded notes, when I finally get back to spinning, I think I want to try chain plying.
Awww … thank you lady! This spin represents a turning point for me in the craft — I’m definitely pleased that I got the color management and the transitions right. Off to plan another gradient spin today. 😀
That is beautiful – I love the colours. I must get better at adding notes – I start so well, but then it all goes awry!
Thank you Lucy!
Trust me, I was terrible at notes but once I started looking for them and not always finding what I needed I had to check myself really quickly. LOL!!!
WOW! You did a fantastic job of spinning that into a gorgeous skein of gradient yarn.
Thank you! I enjoyed it so much I’m planning to start another today after I finish my TDF ply! 😀
Wow. Such beautiful yarn. It must be so nice to knit with yarn you made. That said I will continue to resist picking up a new craft. Just this morning I discovered my notes were lacking as I tried to remember how many stitches I left untwined with my Fish Lip Kiss Heel in Fixation yarn.😣
LOLOL! We’ve all been there! That’s why my note taking got better, I realised how bad mine were when I could track where I was in different projects. I hope you were able to find your way.
Thank you for the yarn love and yes, it really feels wonderful to knit with yarn made by your own hands. If you ever want to head down the rabbit hole, let me know … I’m always happy to share what I know and resources. 😉
those spindles remind me of candy floss, beautiful yarn! I wish I could spindle spin properly…
Can I ask you, where did you get those “stoppers”, or how are those “thingies” called?
You can do it! It took me a while. Learning how to spin supported really helped suspending spinning come together for me. I learned that at the end of 2019 so I’ve really only been drop spindling since last year. If I could do it, you can too. Let me know if you need any help.
The stop thingies (love that name … LOL) are wine glass markers I found on Amazon years ago. Search for silicone wine glass markers and you’ll find them. 😀
thanks a million Nicky!
I really enjoyed reading the post and seeing your beautiful spinning. I know what you mean about Ravelry project pages and I admit that one of my intentions this year is to get better and more consistent with my notes and logging. It’s particularly annoying to find I haven’t recorded the yardage on a project!
Thank you so much!
I feel the same way, I never used to measure spins or record how much yarn I had left after a project or even sometimes when I uploaded yarn, I didn’t add details. Frustrating when I tried to project plan so one year I bit the bullet and went through all my entries to get the details in. 😀