purple tussah silk 2-ply

I’m spinning again! I had forgotten how much I enjoy spinning silk. I spun the little bit of purple dyed tussah silk that I had left from a previous project (about 2/3 oz) into 186 yards of 2 ply yarn. I spun the single yesterday, and plied it this evening. Absolute joy. This is exactly what the doctor ordered. A bit of enjoyable, relaxing spinning.

I mixed 2 or 3 different Jacquard Acid Dye to get the purple I wanted. The dye didn’t completely blend and took up differently on different parts of the roving. But I love it. It added quite a bit of depth to the color. And it also kept the rovings from getting boring because of the slight variations. (I did say that I have a low boredom threshold, didn’t I?)

Now, it’s whetted my appetite for more spinning. I’ve got to restrain myself until I get more Christmas presents done!

On the down side, I just got an email about the guild meeting next week — it’s not a plain old gift exchange, but a handmade Christmas ornament exchange. Sigh. Now what do I do? What can I knit the silk into for an ornament? a pair of mini-mittens? I’ve never tried that. Could be fun. There’s always mini-socks too. But mittens would be different. The thumbs would not be fun though. Need more thought.

Maybe I should spin to help get the creative juices flowing … or spin some wool to make the ornament out of. Hmm …

It’s been a productive weekend. I finished Ian’s scarf too. I was told that it is the wishbone pattern from Barbara Walker’s book. But when I looked it up, the wishbone is a cable and looks nothing like this. This is a faux cable, made via a series of make 1s and decreases. No extra needles and pretty fast to make. Only 8 rows in the repeat.

The scarf is about 8″ wide by 45″ long. As long as the 3 balls of alpaca I had in my stash would take me. (Heirloom Alpaca, 8 ply, shade 972)

The dyed in the wool fleece turned out beautifully! Doesn’t it look like fall foliage? I’m actually pretty excited about carding it out, spinning it and see what happens. See, selective amnesia is already setting in and I haven’t even started to card yet!