Since we moved to Tauranga just over a week ago and are still unpacking I can’t really justify the 6 hour round trip this weekend to Kumeu to Fibre Fiesta to get a top up of fibre fabulousness, so I did a little bit of online shopping instead 🙂
Up until this purchase I have been pretty exclusive with my choice of New Zealand of indie dyers and fibres for spinning, so I don’t feel too guilty about buying merino from an international dyer, especially since I am supporting Cindy who is also a fab NZ indie dyer 🙂 I’m really looking forward to seeing how the Dye Candy spins (or more like – how well I can spin it!)
I also got 100 grams of different coloured Ashford corriedale from the Agridome in Rotorua a couple of weekends ago, watched some youtube videos, and on Sunday I made what might almost be artyarn.
I started with trying to wrap the fibre around a commercial yarn a technique called core spinning. I gave up pretty quickly though – it was so fiddly! I suppose my not being very practiced at drafting corriedale (I much prefer merino and alpaca) wouldn’t have helped!
I then went onto fat and thin spinning and trying to get some kind of a regular rhythm and pattern. This was a bit easier so I went with this for a while and then tried spiral plying it on to some silver glittery nylon that I got from spotlight. And the result is what you can see.
I think it’s okay for a first go, and It’s something I want to try more of, but I don’t like ‘wasting’ fibre (or yarn for that matter!) so I’m going to do it properly and I’ll be looking out for classes at the guild and at Creative Fibre so I can learn from a pro. And I really want to be able to do beehives, I spend way to long drooling over them pinterest 🙂
Cup of Tea and a Yarn 