That being said, here are the ones I have got pics of. Now the pics may not be the greatest, but that is because my phone's camera suuuuucks. Because it has big cracks in the little plastic thing that covers the lens. And yes, I am too cheap to buy a new phone - I've had it since the end of 2009 I think. I want the phone I had back before that - it was a silver flip phone that reminded me of the original Star Trek communicators, I could just flip it open.
This is the first bobbin of yarn I ever spun. The lady who runs Yack & Yarn showed me how to start it, but the rest is all me. And yes, I have definitely improved since this. All beginner yarn is "thick & thin" and people actually try to make it later and call it art yarn. I think I got like 135 yards . . . ok I totally don't remember now.
This is actually the first yarn I spun. Mostly about 20 years ago on the drop spindle. It's a rather harsh yarn so I'm not fond of how it feels. But I loooove the changeover in colors. How say I put yellow next to turquoise and you can see it spiral up and switch places. So pretty. Now I can't remember how long it was, I want to say 75 yards.
And the "sweet tarts" yarn - Malabrigo Nube (which means "cloud") in the color Baya Electrica. A 4 oz braid of Merino wool, all dyed up in pretty raspberry and purple. I spun this all on my original drop spindle and got like 167ish yards. It's so soft and I liked it so much I got another braid of it at Mosaic and am (very slowly) in the process of spinning that up. This first one took me a week and was a bit felted. That can be a problem with fiber. You just kind of have to pull it apart and then draft it. I wonder if it would help if I had a comb or something. (Hmmm slicker dog brushes are pretty cheap, might look into that) I watched Forever Knight while spinning most of this yarn. I had a great time with it.
Not a great picture, but this is when it was hanging up in my bathroom, drying over the tub. This shows the nice twist I have in it.
And here's a better pic:
I had gotten some fiber from Paradise Fibers to practice on. I found some Norwiegan wool in both grey and white - 4 ounces of each - that I decided would be a great tweeded effect. I got 225 yards out of that. (No pic tho) It spun up nicer than I thought but definitely good for outerwear.
I also found a bright blue Corridale that looks like it's the color of the tardis, so I got 8 ounces. I split it in half and spun them up. I got like 250 yards. No idea what I will do with it.
And then I got some alpaca/wool blend that I had wanted. I kept drooling over the lime sherbet that the seller had and also liked the 5 colored one called "froggy". So, I bought a total of 16 oz of it from them (3 lots of 4 oz each of the lime sherbet they had left and 1 4-oz lot of the froggy). I had good March productivity, so I felt I deserved it. I got it and decided to spin up the froggy stuff and Navajo ply, aka n-ply, it. That means it has 3 strands instead of 2, it's like making a really big crochet chain and twisting it up. It's good for when you want to keep the colors together or have 1 strand or things like that. I was a bit disappointed in this as it was rather greasier than I was used to. I couldn't seem to get the greasy/waxy feeling off of my fingers after I spun, so I couldn't spin a bit and then cross stitch, like I could with the previous ones. Also, there was a lot of "vm" in there. VM = vegetative matter = little pieces of grass and sticks and things like that. Buffy & Molly bring vm in on their fur all the time, silly goggies. So . . . I'm thinking I will wait and see how the lime sherbet (which I still have yet to spin up) behaves. Maybe it was just the froggy stuff.
I don't remember how much I spun . . . . I really ought to label stuff . . .
I went to Mosaic and got 2 4-oz braids dyed by Spun Right Round Fibers. One is a rainbow colored one in very bright colors called Candy Shop. It's a Polwarth. I love bright, rainbow colors, so I decided yes, please. I found some white Polwarth at the Olde Liberty Fibre Faire I went to in March and decided to ply it with that.
I got 363 yards when the two were plied up and I even had some of the candy shop left over, so I n-plied that.
The other 4-oz braid I got there was a Merino called Serenity. And yes, it is indeed named after the ship in the show Firefly. It has brown for the brownshirts and blue for the "hands of blue" as well as some white, black (I guess for space), and purple. I decided to ply it with a lovely brownish-grey Romney I found at the same fiber fair. I'll take a pic of it (I've finished spinning/plying it) - I got 417.5 yds of the Firefly and not quite 128 of the Serenity (n-plied). I found that the Serenity only is really pretty - I want to go back and get the other braid! And the Firefly is a lovely, subtle color. I think it'd be a great yarn for something for a guy, it's actually rather neutral, but has sort of a masculine feel to me.
And I also got a braid my Y&Y lady dyed. I probably could have happily bought all her yarn, but restrained myself to just the one 4-oz braid. It's Falkland wool dyed in blues/purples, named Blueberry Bash and is rather smashing. I was able to get 160 yds n-plied of this:
And a bit brighter with the flash on:
I also spun up 2 ounces each of a brown and a fawn colored alpaca that my dad got me - 245 yards, whew!
Pics to come of the actual spun up yarns! And my Yarn Keeper my dad made me.
It looks awesome:)
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