Fiber Friday: The Merino Saga

A while back I got some some purple merino and tussah silk in a trade thinking I would spin some lace yarn.

Using about 3 ounces of the purple merino you see above and an ounce of the tussah silk in the lower left corner. I made some batts.



I got bored spinning so fine so I chain plied what I had spun so far and set the yarn aside.


3ply, chain plied,  over the fold, short forward draw, no twist in drafting zone.
187 yards, .92 oz/.06 lbs, 3224 ypp, 40wpi, lace weight


Then I decided it would be lovely fiber for a hat or mittens but a thicker yarn.  So I set the ratio to 5:1 with some take up and spun over the fold long draw.


2 ply, 5:1 ratio, over the fold long draw
134 yards, 1.6 oz/.17 lbs, 1340 ypp, 18wpi, sport weight

Then I spun some more:


2 ply, 5:1 ratio, over the fold long draw
108 yards, .98 oz/ .06 lb, 1808 ypp, 16-18wpi, sport weight but a little thinner than the skein above.

Then I decided to take what purple fiber I had left, some natural merino and the last once of tussah silk and blend in various ways to play with color.



I divided the fiber up for two batts.  So the batts would be light and airy.



Above you can see the little bit of purple merino I had left and some of the silk.



Here I added another layer of natural merino
.


One of the lovely batts right after it's first pass.  I made another batt.  I took one batt and blended it one more time.  Then took half of that and blended that for a third time.   Sadly I did not document the batts for those skeins.  All this was also  spun pulling off small chunks of the batt and spinning over the fold long draw at a ratio 5:1 with some take up.



From the top one pass (1x), two passes (2x), three passes (3x) through the carder.

Blended 1x - I like this this one the best with the little bits if colors popping out.  I'm excited to see how this knits up:

2 ply, 5:1 ratio, over the fold long draw
167 yards, 1.6 oz/ .11 lb 1670 ypp, 18 wpi, sport weight


Blended 2x - I like how I can still see some of the colors but it's more muted and heathered.  I love heathered colors:

2 ply, 5:1 ratio, over the fold long draw
100 yards, .88 oz/ .06 lb, 1667 ypp, 18wpi. sport weight


Blended 3x - Even more muted than the skein above.

2 ply, 5:1 ratio, over the fold long draw
111 yards, .88 oz/ .06 lb, 1853 ypp, 18 wpi, sport weight - little thinner than skein above

The colors are fairly well represented in the photos.  In natural light you might be able to see the greens and purple in the yarn more clearly.  Yet my online and real life friend saw gray.  From a distance I think these skeins did come out a warm gray.  I think I fill in the other colors because I know what the tussah silk looked like before it was blended with the the fibers.



This photo is a bit blurry but you can see how intense the colors were. Initially I planned to over-dye some of the skeins for more colors.  My knit groups told me not to.  They thought the colors were beautiful as is so I'm going to listen to their sage advice.



So now the hat idea has turned into a shawl idea.  Stay tuned for future project updates.