Friday, December 19, 2008

My spinner's challenge

OK so my spinning group that I have been going to for a couple years decided to do something a bit different. Our usual is to meet once a month and spin. Well in June we had a dye day. Several of us met on a Sunday and dyed 10 pounds of wool. Our goal was to match four different colorways that was featured in a Weaving magazine. I have no idea what issue or when it came out. Then we were to spin it up and make something. Well I am happy to say I am finally finished with of of the 3 colorways that I brought home that day. It took me so long because I had to have a trial separation because when it came to the knitting it got so boring.
The spinning was quite fun. What I did was lay out the color in order and spin a lace weight single. Then I plied it with a mocha brown to dull the colors a bit. Which it did as the light green was a lime color and the orange was really bright. I ended up with some where in the neighborhood of 950 yards.




While I was spinning the yarn an issue of Spin Off came out that had an article about dropped stitch scarfs. Well I really like the pattern and decided to use it for my shawl. I did add more stitches to the cast on (72) and knit until I ran out of yarn. Even though the colors are in order. From dark brown to gold to bright orange, to light orange to lime green to light green. then it repeated and then ended with dark brown. The color changes don't match. One color may have 5 repeats and the match has 3. It does look uniform.







The final size is 16 inches wide and 102 inches long. I think I had about 2 yards of yarn left when all was said and done.
Even though it took me over 6 months to finish this project I am really happy with how it turned out and I can't wait to wear it.

2 comments:

Rebecca said...

beautiful wrap! I'd love to see a pic of it modeled! You do such wonderful work.

Cary ~ My Wool Mitten at Serenity Farms said...

Melanie, I LOVE your blog!!! Why hadn't I visited before? Or have I and then just forgot? LOL...that can happen you know ;) I have just been having a wonderful time reading all of your amazing fibery pursuits...amazing!

Have a wonderful, blessed Christmas