Twilight

Nope. Not the book. Not even a little.

It's the new yarn I finished this week!



It's an one of a kind colorway from FiberOptic that I purchased at trunk show at Knitter's Mercantile. The name of the colorway was Twilight. The fiber is was one of her pencil rovings, the Siren Song blend, which is 70% merino wool, and 30% seacell. Here's another shot of the seed beads which were spun into the yarn.



The beads are size 8 seed beads, which were strung onto one ply of the yarn. I strung dozens and dozens of beads at once and spread them out over the yarn as I wound it onto a bobbin. I convert my kiwi into a bobbin winder by slipping the drive band into the bobbin groove to wind on yarn. After a few treadles, I'd let a bead wind on with the yarn onto the bobbin. I was completely shocked and surprized that this technique worked! Usually, beads are spun into a yarn as you go, it's a risky business trying to string beads onto notoriously weak and unstable singles. Particularly lace singles, which are thinner, thus weaker. Plus, they have all that extra twist which makes them kinky - that sounded alot dirtier than I meant. Either which way, the moral of the story is to spin a single with lots of twist so that it's strong enough to withstand the weight of dozens upon dozens of seed beads sliding over it.



I acutally wound up spinning three skeins from this fiber, two mini-skeins at 0.5 oz each and one large, beaded skein. The whole project is an interesting study in how I've progressed in spinning. The mini-skeins are solidly fingering weight, while the beaded skein is a very light lace weight, almost cobweb. This photo compares the three skeins. In the middle are strands from the beaded skein, while strands from the mini-skeins are on either side. I was really pleased with how it came out. The singles were spun on my ashford Kiwi, and then plied on my new e-spinner! I wound up sending the yarn through the e-spinner a second time to add twist, since I only added enough twist to lock in the beads the second time around.

Pictures do not do the colors justice. I can't recommend FiberOptic's work enough! That rich, vibrant purple color didn't bleed a single drop when I finished the yarn. You can also find her fiber and yarn on her website at www.kimberbaldwindesigns.com. Her etsy store sees more regular updates during festival season. Her fibers are a dream to spin, her yarns are vibrant and soft, and her colors never bleed.

Now that my bobbins are cleared off, I can start on my color project. I have pictures of my first adventure in color spinning, and I'm totally in love with colors that refuse to be defined.