Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Tour De Fleece Days 2-3

I have steadily been spinning on the clown roving. Made some singles Sunday night that were between dk and fingering weight (unfortunate, only because I wanted the ending yarn to be fingering weight...) using the ZOMG fast flyer on my Ashford Kiwi.



I finished the first 4oz bump on Sunday night. Ended up with 2 bobbins of singles.

Monday I decided I would get on looking up how to navajo ply. Believe it or not, if you watch the YouTube videos, it really makes it easy to understand.
The first video was done by Rexenne: How to Navajo Ply Demystified and Unraveled which was really helpful for its slo-mo vids and her explanation as to how to get it all started. The second video was an Interweave Video, with Sarah Anderson called Navajo Plying. This video was really helpful because Sarah includes tons of tips and really shows you the method she uses (which I've now shamelessly adopted.)

After watching the videos a couple of times, I decided to try it myself, with the bobbin I had rested since Saturday. Here's what I ended up with:



I swear. That is the UGLIEST thing I have ever made. And I've been crafty since a very young age. Two things can be blamed for this. 1) I understand the concept of making the loop only big enough to keep the color repeats together. I didn't really do that, because 2) my cat decided that attacking the single as it was coming off the lazy kate was a really good idea, and hence, I was a little distracted. I have another bobbin to use, which will hopefully work better (the cat will be locked out of the room...)

In the meantime, I predrafted the other 4 oz bump of clown roving, and it awaits my return to the spinning wheel. I am aiming for this round of singles to be about 46 wpi, so that I might make a three ply that vaguely resembles fingering weight yarn.

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