Welcome to another Mom sponsored spinning experiment. It should be said that with only 3 handspun skeins under my belt, everything I do with fiber and spindle is an experiment, which makes it all double the fun!
I’ve been reading about spinning ‘fractally’, which is the process of splitting a roving with color variegation in half – spinning one half into loooong color repeats and the other half into shorter color repeats, then plying them together. The resulting yarn, when knit up will create stripes – some solid, some barberpole. The preparation of your fiber for this type of spinning seems pretty straight forward when you start with one long length of roving.
To spin fractally, split the entire length of your roving in half, then split one of the halves 3 or 4 times more. Spin each half separately, (the shorter pieces should be spun end to end, always starting from the same end), then ply the two halves together, keeping the original orientation. This not only creates stripes, but also works to help separate colors to keep them from getting muddy. Sounds awfully wise and like just the right thing to do, similar to avoiding pooling of color in variegated yarns.
I’m currently almost halfway done spinning the pictured Falkland, dyed by Into the Whirled in the Kimuro colorway fractally to see what I come up with. I’m impressed with Falkland for its’ softness and loooong staple. It has a micron count of 26, very similar to the softness of Blue Faced Leicester, which would work for next to skin garments for me. Maybe it’ll become socks? I need some bright striped Falkland socks. Yes I do.
I’ll keep you posted.
Oh I can’t wait to see how they turn out – I love self striping yarn and if I’ve got my blond brain wrapped around this right, those socks should be spectacular!
I’ll definately keep you updated, Amy. You know how excited I get about spinning! 🙂 I cracked up at the blond brain thing! LOL!