Yarn Play!

I've been having some fun with yarn play this week! I love all the art yarns I have seen and I want to learn to do this myself, so I thought I may as well dig in and start experimenting. I'm working with a neutral palette for this project.



This is the fiber grab bag that I used to spin my first art yarn. I have some natural brown alpaca from my friend Kim, this fiber is from Sequoia. I couldn't leave out angora, I used a natural cream colored fiber from my friend Jan, this fiber is from Baby. The roving is natural colored Romney with tussah silk and kid mohair. Then, for a little pop, I added the Mix-ins which consisted of commercial yarns and ribbons.



I spun one single with the various fibers and mix-ins, the other single is the remaining alpaca fiber from Sequoia.



Here is the hank of the two singles plied, this picture makes it look quite a bit lighter than it is, it's actually presents as light brown or sort of a heathered brown very much like brown rag wool. I'm excited to begin knitting with this yarn, it will be interesting to see how the mix-ins show up in the knitted garment.



Next I took some of the remaining alpaca single and plied it with a metallic thread I had beaded using mixed beads of champagne and crystal color, the thread is an opal iridescent color. This is about 16 yards, I wanted to make sure that I had the proper technique before I made a lot of this, as it is quite time consuming. Once I find that it's a go, I will make some more, I love beads!



I also did a bit more core wrapping, using a commercial yarn over a handspun alpaca single. I tried it both ways, using the commercial as the core and then the alpaca, the outer yarn definitely looks better if it's thicker, so I spun the rest using the commercial yarn on the outside. I love how fluffy it looks, it will be fun to knit with!

I'm excited to play with some more ideas for this project, I just love spinning!

Have a great week! Blessings friends!
Melissa