Introducting Gretel

I am thrilled to finally have a spinning wheel. I so wanted to get started the moment I opened the box but Gretel (named after a very round Basset Hound) needed a good staining before she was assembled. Finally last week she was ready to be put together.

My wool roving arrived just a day before the wheel so I was ready to go. My first attempt, a very thick double ply, had a great deal of character. It has already become two hats which I may felt a bit as I am worried about the strength of my first yarn. Unfortunately I'm far to busy to take a class right now so I turned to Youtube, watched 5 or six video clips and my second attempt, taken much slower, came out beautifully. I plied it Wednesday and set the twist, then dyed it Thursday night.

I was really curious to see how different the same dye lot would turn out if the roving was dyed before spinning. Here are the results:

The left skein is hand-painted after spinning, next is the roving in the same dye lot, and to the right is the hand-painted roving spun and plied.




I love both the crisp colors of the hand-painted yarn and the muted, blended colors the hand-painted roving produced. Unfortunatley it's difficult to see anything but the lapis in the second skein but the color blending really is quite lovely.

Off to try the soy.

More to come!
Thanks for visiting,
Angelina