I wanted another "spin and knit as you go" project. I try to walk around our property (3 laps = a mile) once a day, and I love to spin while I walk. But I enjoy it more if I have something that will be made from the yarn-- and it also encourages me to keep walking so I'll have enough yarn for my knitting.
For a few years now I've played with the idea of leaves. According to my Ravelry notebook, I've been gathering ideas for over three years (no rush--really don't need another shawl). Sometimes literal.
Sometimes more impressionistic
I kept coming back to this more literal one
(although what's with the blue leaves?)
Instead of the leaves in the pattern (and I'd have to buy the book that the pattern is in to get it) I wanted to try a lace leaf pattern that I bought at a spin in by Jackie Erickson-Schweitzer, probably about 15 years ago (it's a pretty daunting pattern)
So--I had my pattern. Now I need yarn. By happy circumstance, my favorite indie dyer (Greenwood Fiberworks) just happened to have BFL braids (a wool that I love) in an Autumn Leaf colorway (with no weird blues).
At first I just tried spinning from the end--but the yarn came out a bit heavier than I wanted, and overlapped a color change. So the first leaf looked like this.
Not bad, not quite right. I had bought two braids (8 ounces), but I wanted the leaves to be a bit more light weight and delicate. And possibly only one color. The braid was dyed in sections of about 4 inches. I pulled them apart and made piles of each color and then used my combs to open them up. The fluffed up yarn drafted more easily, hence more finely. It ended up being my default yarn, with the final 2-ply being 24 wraps per inch. I don't have a problem with the idea of a default yarn--if I'm going to be spinning this over a long period of time, while wandering around and admiring the great outdoors, I don't want to think about it too much.
The original leaf is the two-toned one. You can see that the others are finer.
To be continued . . .
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