I started this spin a long time ago. Long for me anyway. Normally I get through a not-too-big spin (in this case, 200g) in less than a month, easy. This one sat, and sat, and sat. I started it August 15th, and finished it on November 28th. Three and a half months is silly for such a small spin.
Part of the reason was that for some of that time I wasn’t feeling well, and had tough motivation to do anything. But another part of it was I had a complete mental block with this yarn. I imagined it going one way, and I could not make it work no matter what.
This yarn was a lesson that sometimes the fibre needs to do what it’s going to do, and we’re just along for the ride.
The original plan was a 3 ply fractal that came in at about 12-14 wraps per inch. The tweed nubs in this fibre quickly thwarted that, and I struggled to spin it as thinly as I wanted from the get go. To spin a 3 ply sport weight, my singles had to be about 24-28 WPI and try as I might, there was just no way I was making that happen. The tweed nubs caused the draw to be uneven, and I couldn’t get anywhere near that weight without also having these big, giant blobs of fibre. I could go back and constantly re-draft the parts that came out too thick, but that was frustrating to say the least because it was extremely frequent. Great for an art yarn, not for me who doesn’t really do art yarns.
So I took a bit of a break. A long break, actually. I probably slowed down spinning this yarn by early September, then didn’t touch it again until mid-November. At that point I had come to terms with the fact it was not going to be what I originally planned, and I just needed to let go a bit.
My singles ended up being about 16-18 WPI, resulting in about an aran weight when all was said and done. I got a lot less yardage than I wanted because of this, but still a usable amount. My original plan had been to weave a pillow, and 250 yds is a reasonable amount to do that with.
Having said all that, the look of the yarn itself, with its moody colours, flecks of tweed, and subdued hues is exactly the way I pictured it, and I love it. It’s going to be so interesting to see this woven all together. I plan on doing warp and weft with this yarn, and I’m hoping the fractal gives it some really interesting dimension. I’ve never woven with a fractal yarn before, so it’ll be extremely interesting.
This is a hefty yarn, and part of that is because I knew I was going to weave with it and wanted it to stand up to the stress on my rigid heddle. Even still, I was a bit surprised that it came in at 600 yards/lb, which is a crazy grist for me (even for a heavy weight).
I plan on weaving this up in 2022, so stay tuned.
And some quick details:
Finished Yarn Weight: Aran (approx 8 WPI)
Finished Yardage: 245 yds
Finished Grist: 600 ypp
Finished Twists Per Inch: 4
Weight: 195 g
Unfinished Yarn Weight: Worsted (approx. 9 WPI)
Unfinished singles: 18-24 WPI (it varied a lot)
Singles Twists Per Inch: 5
Unfinished Yardage: Forgot to measure!
Unfinished Grist: See above
Prep: Combed top
Spun: Short forward while letting the twist in
Colour handling: Fractal, split 1/2/4