Silk alpaca mix

Trying the plying

My first yarn was a double ply and it was quite successful. I really wanted to try a 3-ply but my first attempt left me in such a tangle the yarn really wasn't worth keeping. I obviously needed a Lazy Kate. This is a device that keeps severl spools of yarn neatly together whilst you are plying. I didn't have the money to but one so I thought I would make one from a box and some pencils,

This is the result. Overall I thought it worked - kind of - but I had to hole it in my feet and the yarn was interesting but very rough. Tough but rough! I have since found out that plying was something that only really came into fashion when the spinning wheel was invented and before that most yarn was single ply. I really like making thick single ply, I am drawn to this kind of yarn when I hit the LYS...think Noro with it's beautiful colourways!
I decided that I would probably buy a Lazy Kate at some point to make plying easier.

Spinning a yarn

For my birthday Rob bought me a beautiful Turkish drop spindle and so started my journey into yarn making. I got the hang of it pretty quickly and it seemed as if it was something my hands wanted to do. It's a very silly fancy of mine to think that spinning is so deeply ingrained into the female psyche that I had been waiting for a spindle to be given to me all my life and didn't know it.

So this is my first attempt. It's a rainbow of merino wool. What I didn't realise is that once you have spun the yarn you can ply it as many times as you like and then you have to give it a bath to 'set' the fibres.



so here it is...my first homespun yarn. It's been spun, plyed, washed, dried and balled up and it looks so beautiful.
I am making it into a bag so that I can keep my first skein for myself, also it really is not very even so I would be a bit embarrassed to give it to anyone.