Spinning to Crochet

I felt it time to pull my spinning wheel out and start making my own yarn, instead of buying commercial all the time. It seems I fell into the habit of ‘just buying’ and not thinking enough about the yarn I am using.

With my new EEW6 electric spinner, it’s quick and easy to spin up fibre (more about the EEL in another post). My spinner has a good rechargeable battery, so am not tied to mains power.

Commercial yarn is not the same as hand-spun. By the time the commercial process is finished, there is no ‘life’ left in the yarn – the ‘bounce’ of hand-spun.  So, I am embarking on spinning up a few different colours to crochet into Granny Squares.

The first is a 100gram skein of mixed colour – burgundy-pink-burnt pink. There are good sections of each colour, which I have spun in what is called ‘fractal’ spinning – meaning keeping the colours separate as its spun.

As there is only 100grams, it would not go very far when used, so have decided to spin another thread of plain burgundy to keep the blocks of maroon, and the rest will morph into mixed. To obtain the colour I am looking for, I will have to dye the fibre maroon before I can spin and ply it. For this, a white Corridale sliver will be used (another post for the dying).

At this stage, it’s more an experiment with colour and style of yarn. It will be approximately 4ply (or sock) weight and ought to be around 200grams when finished. Although am leaning towards a granny square jumper, so will probably spin a contrasting colour (or colours) to make up enough for the garment.

While I was waiting for the dye to arrive, I started spinning other colours for other granny square projects, starting with about 100gram of each colour and using pre-dyed merino slivers.

I have So many different types of fibres stashed  away, this is just the beginning…