I started with the rainbow speckled roving I dyed with dry KoolAid. I want to spin this yarn for a particular design, something I haven't really done before. I've designed with yarn I've spun and I've spun yarn for a particular pattern, but I've never developed the yarn AND the pattern together.
I want to do a big N-ply gradient for most of the yarn... but I also want to have some shorter striped section for a separate piece of my design. I started out dividing a bit of the fiber into three thin sections to spin.
Of course after I started doing this I began to regret my decision and wonder if I should make this N-ply too. Nonono, let's not change midstream... Although it could be fun to compare Z and S n-ply out of the same fiber but I did the singles completely differently.
I had enough yardage when I finished these singles that I did end up N-plying them. I wanted the color repeats to be even shorter so plying the yarn helped with that.
When I was filming this video, I realized (once again) how hard it is to spin and talk. Since it is a vlog I didn't want there to be too much time where I wasn't sharing my thought process but this resulted in me making mistakes sometimes.
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| Bulky Rainbow Gradient |
I took a break in the middle of the spinning project. The summer was hot and dry and snuggling up with fiber wasn't that appealing. Once the weather started to cool I picked the project back up and quickly finished the rainbow gradient bulky Z singles (spinning the wheel clockwise).
I think these bulkier singles are about as thick as the thinner, N-ply yarn. Time to start plying!
After N-plying the thicker yarn (with difficulty as I didn't switch to my bulky yarn orifice and the yarn keep getting stuck during uptake on the wheel), I wound both yarns at the same time around my niddy noddy. I didn't do the propper niddy noddy twist but instead made the center shaft 2 feet long so I could still have two 4 foot skeins.
I can't get over how stunning the rainbow gradient came out!
Chunky Rainbow Gradient - Z singles, S N-ply yarn. 17 wraps ~ 22 yards. 9 wraps/2" - Super bulky weight
Thinner Small repeats of color - S singles, Z N-ply yarn. 16 wraps ~22 yards. 22 wraps/2" = worsted weight.
I can't believe that the two yarns have approximately the same yardage! There is always a +/- when I count wraps because there can be partial wraps in there, which is why I approximated both yarns to be ~22 yards.
It is easy to say that you can get many completely different yarns out of the same fiber, but it was really fun to show you how you can get drastic differences. I can't wait to show you what I knit with these yarns. (Stay tuned for a brand new free knitting pattern by ChemKnits!)
I had so much content that I split this story into two videos. In Part 1, I spin the singles and N-ply the thinner yarn with shorter color repeats. In Part 2, I spin the chunky singles for the long rainbow gradient and N-ply this yarn. Finally, while I was backing up some of the videos, I quickly created an "Auto Awesome" from the files to give my followers a little sneak peek. It has been a while since I've been able to finish a new video so hopefully this will make people happy. Enjoy!
