Ugly and Cute

Nasty, matted, pink mill ends, spun quickly and with no finesse in and effort to just get it over with, and then plyed against itself and/or with another single that was also unloved. This kind of toil gets you a pile of ugly yarn in varying thicknesses.



Overdye it to improve the colour and you get ----

--- well, you get yarn that is still darn ugly, but maybe slightly improved.



Oh, maybe I should just forget the ugly yarn pictures and send you over to my granddaughter Kaylen's blog to see a slideshow of her first swimming lessons.

One Skein Knitted Up

From the first two bobbins of Superwash Merino I made 2 skeins of 2 ply at an average of 17 WPI. That marks it as a "fingering weight", but in actual use I found I liked the way it draped when knit up a little looser and I have had this pattern kicking around for a while looking for the perfect yarn. It's supposed to be knit in a DK weight cotton yarn. I find the handspun merino looks perfect and drapes beautifully.



The photo shows how far I was able to go with the first skein, which was the smaller of the two.

The beginning of the second sleeve is looking a little rumpled in the picture as it has not yet been blocked. I have the lower part of the first sleeve blocked because I was concerned about my gauge and wanted to double check before I continued. Blocking improved the knitting a great deal. It made the handspun look more smooth and regular, it opened up the lace some, and it greatly improved the drape.

I'm really enjoying this project. It looks way prettier in person than it does in these rather low light photos.

2 B Plyed

On the wheel:



Superwash mill ends from ebay seller shpherder.

I have 2 very large bobbins of this spun and ready to be plyed. I purchased 2 pounds of this dark, dark navy colour, and pound of a soft, bubblegum pink, 2 pounds of black, and 3 pounds of light blue. It's lovely, soft wool, but I find it a bit difficult to spin. The combination of "superwash" AND "merino" makes it very slippery. I have to "pinch" with the lead hand a little more firmly than I am used to and if I spin for a long time my hand cramps up.

Worth it though.