February Fibre Club: Candygram

Sweet Georgia Yarns Fibre Club is a fun way to experiment with fibres and colours. It's also a great way to boot you out of any kind of a fibre/spinning rut you may be in.  You sign up for three months at a time. Once a month you get a 100g bag of unspun fibre with a description of the content of the yarn along with some spinning suggestions.

The fibre for February is called Candygram. According to Felicia Lo, "All these saccharine pinks, lilacs, light lime greens and pale blues remind me of those little candy hearts that you get at Valentine's Day." And boy, she's right. These are not colours that would have every chosen for myself. But that's the fun thing about the Fibre Club. Once you have them, you have to work with them. And it ended up being really fun. I love these intense bold colours and the splash of silver glitter that ekes out one in a while. 

It is made of 63% Superwash Merino Wool, 20% Silk, 15% Nylon, 2% "Silver." And it was prepared as a pencil roving.  A sleek amount of fibre, about the thickness of a . . . pencil.  

I've been off spinning with my wheel due to a spinning injury, and since the spinning workshop last week, I've been full on with my spindles. So this is being done entirely with my lace-weight spindles for the singles, and my heavier, Henry's Dervish for plying.

I actually have crafted a detailed plan for spinning this yarn.  But I won't explain my thinking until I am sure it worked.  Why bother otherwise?  But here it is nearly done - all the fibre is spun up and I am at the plying stage now.  

From left to right you will see, a larger spindle that I am using for plying with about a third of the plying done.  Next to that you will see two sets of purple balls next to lace-weight spindles full of singles. These are waiting to be wound into two-ply balls which make plying so much easier. The wee green ball at the bottom is the left over from winding a double-ply ball.  I am sure there will be others so this one will get incorporated into the final plan.  The mini skein at the very bottom is one of the sample I did as I tried to figure out how to get the best out of all these colours.

Will post the final results.