Twirls and loops

In a last-minute frenzy to clear my bobbins before heading off to SOAR, I needed to come up with something to do with fair bit of a merino single, kinda bulky. I think it was the orphan of some spinning at the cottage in the summer. What to do? I remembered the stash of crochet cotton I inherited and went rummaging for a colour that would go with the purple-blue single.

Then I got started, running the single back through the wheel while letting the crochet cotton spin around it with little guidance from me. That's a technique I learned from Jacey Boggs DVD on making art yarns. I was lucky enough to have a class with her at SOAR. It's lucky I even made it to SOAR, since I was up so late the night before - packing barely started - spinning this yarn. Usually plying goes fast, but not so much in this case. Once I had two bobbins of yarn with the merino single and crochet cotton dancing around it, I plied those together to get something pretty funky. It was neat to see how the cotton wrap changed its look with the cabling, loosening up a bit while also locking in-between the plies. Weird.


Earlier today I put it through the wheel again because it needed a bit more ply to make it balanced. It was pretty good already, but I took the few extra minutes. That is, after I found the swift, set it up and got spinning in the right direction. S and Z twist should be so easy to figure out. Now the skein is hanging out in the shower after its bath.

Here's a (fuzzy) close-up: