I think it would be honest to say that I've gone a little mad over the last 48hrs. Monday evening saw me put the last 50g of the Phoenix fibre on my spindle... and finish spinning it that night. Ok not so bad, it was just a solid evening's spinning. The next morning saw me have it plyed, skeined and washed in a little over three hours. Again still not totally nuts. The biggest challenge with this one has been matching it to the first skein. In the photos the original is at the bottom with the second at the top. A month of spinning laceweight and then going back to spin singles for a sport weight was interesting, especially when I tried to add in the slight slubbieness of the original.
The madness though was in starting the August spin challenge from Ravelry. This month's theme was "Hot August Nights" and the second batt I'd bought for my sister-in-law seemed appropriate, reminding me of a sunset seen through a sand filled sky, like you get in Dubai.
Well for some reason (something about there allegedly only being 30g of fibre) I decided to spin the singles up that evening, which actually went remarkably quickly... so quickly that the mad part of my head thought it couldn't possibly take that long to ply the singles! I have to admit to being somewhat disappointed with the singles, as they were much more brown than I had expected from the vibrancy of the outside of the batt.
After seeking some advice from the brilliant Spindlers group though I decided to ply it back on itself rather than ply it with a solid red. Having seen the final skein I think it was the right call. A solid red would have washed out the red from the batt, bringing even more to the fore the pale brown sections. Again, like the first one of these batts that I've spun its not the softest thing in the world but it doesn't feel overspun either. I think the slightly rougher hand comes from the complete mongral mix that it is made of (Romney, Merino, Mohair, Gotland, Sari, Cotton, Lurex). Having again spun using a long draw the yarn feels nice and airy, but with an almost tweedy look to it. All in all not bad. At just shy of 60m for the 38g it is definately a highlight yarn, or a square of a throw type skein, but either way it is definately usable.
The madness though was in starting the August spin challenge from Ravelry. This month's theme was "Hot August Nights" and the second batt I'd bought for my sister-in-law seemed appropriate, reminding me of a sunset seen through a sand filled sky, like you get in Dubai.
Well for some reason (something about there allegedly only being 30g of fibre) I decided to spin the singles up that evening, which actually went remarkably quickly... so quickly that the mad part of my head thought it couldn't possibly take that long to ply the singles! I have to admit to being somewhat disappointed with the singles, as they were much more brown than I had expected from the vibrancy of the outside of the batt.
After seeking some advice from the brilliant Spindlers group though I decided to ply it back on itself rather than ply it with a solid red. Having seen the final skein I think it was the right call. A solid red would have washed out the red from the batt, bringing even more to the fore the pale brown sections. Again, like the first one of these batts that I've spun its not the softest thing in the world but it doesn't feel overspun either. I think the slightly rougher hand comes from the complete mongral mix that it is made of (Romney, Merino, Mohair, Gotland, Sari, Cotton, Lurex). Having again spun using a long draw the yarn feels nice and airy, but with an almost tweedy look to it. All in all not bad. At just shy of 60m for the 38g it is definately a highlight yarn, or a square of a throw type skein, but either way it is definately usable.
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