ANOTHER secret fiber project

I am sorry about this, but I am going to blather on about fiber and not be able to show you anything for MONTHS.

I mentioned that some of us who get the Purple Fleece’s Roving of the month are participating in a challenge with the October fleece (which Debbie SO NICELY let us have early!)

The challenge is in two parts.

1.) Spin the 4 ounce braid with NOTHING ADDED in a way that is new to us, or that we haven’t done in a long time.  In other words, get out of our comfort zone. Do this without sharing until the big reveal (in January).

2.) Then, knit up something with the yarn, and keep that a secret, too, until the next big reveal, likely in April or May!

So, I have the fiber, and I love it.  It is a blend of targhee, silk, and bamboo.  Spinning this at all will be new to me, I haven’t spun with bamboo before!  Nor targhee, though I have some in stash.

Before I saw the braid, I was thinking of spinning it as a gradient, then chain plying it.  My chain plying still leaves a GREAT DEAL to be desired, so this would meet the challenge rules.

But now that I have seen it, and fallen in love with the gorgeous soft colors and silkiness of it, I think I won’t do either of those things. So what will I do?  Well, of course, I can’t tell you that.  But I can tell you that I spent the evening reading and rereading my two knitting books, Yarn-i-tec-ture and The Spinner’s Book of Yarn Designs. There are several yarns in there that I want to make, OF COURSE.  But for the first time, I was really thinking about the end product that I will reveal next spring.  I could spin a bunch of different yarns that would make good socks.  But do I want SILK and BAMBOO socks?  That does not seem the best use of this lovely fiber.  So (here’s a clue) no hawser for me yet. And probably not a 4 ply cable, though that also sounds fun, this doesn’t seem the right fiber for that.

And we can’t add anything, so I think this won’t be a boucle, though I do want to spin one someday. Maybe with the mohair I have in my stash…

I did narrow it down to a couple of possibilities, and so now I have to think about how I will handle the color.  Separate them so each ply is different?  Spin them end to end and see what happens?  Mix it up and make it random?  The possibilities are endless.

I do have a few ideas of the type of garment I want to knit, but until I see the final yarn, the weight and the yardage, I won’t really be able to decide, will I?

And you, poor folk, will have to wait so long, and read about me working on something I can’t share details or photos of.  I feel your pain.

Meanwhile, here is what I worked on over the past couple of weeks, and did get finished, mostly for the craft sale or to fill some orders.

I am feeling like I need color on my craft fair table table – I seem to have loads of neutral hats in inventory.   So this first one, I put in the Community Caring bin at the purple Fleece.  I really was just testing the pattern, and now I know how to do it, I will likely make some brighter ones to sell.