I’ve decided that while my spinning mojo is strong, it is time to expand my horizons. I pulled out my The Spinner’s Book of Yarn Designs, looked through it, and identified a few yarns I’d like to try. I am hoping, in the upcoming months, to work through them.

I started with my braid of Color Bot from Spun Right Round fiber club. I posted about this two days ago. I made a slub yarn with the intention to ply it with metallic thread. After spinning it, Bug and I headed to the store to get the thread and I looked up the method of plying I was going to use.

The technique in the book is called Spiral Yarn. The idea being that you ply with one ply having a good deal more tension than the other. In this case, the metallic thread had the tension, and I had very little tension on the slub singles.  I have 285 yards of this yarn.

The problem I encountered with this method and the metallic thread is that the thread is too slippery. Which makes the slub yarn move about on the thread. So, it ends up being a rather delicate yarn. I don’t think I’ll be trying this again, but it is a rather interesting looking yarn. And I am glad I tried it. I think using a thin handspun wool would work as it would be more grabby and stick to the slub wool.

In the past, when I’ve made slub yarn singles, I’ve had trouble with the slubs flattening out after washing and finishing the yarn. But, a friend of mine told me that this is due to the handling of it after it is immersed in the water. She said I should use a salad spinner instead, and I did. It worked so well! The trick is not to criticize the yarn before it is dry. It fluffs up so nicely when just left alone.

I also used a tip in the book, which was to shock the yarn as a finishing technique, to get it to felt up a bit to hold together nicely. The idea was to set it in hot water initially, let it get completely wet, and then plunge it into cold water to shock it. I did that. It is supposed to take away the need to felt it using agitation, since the slubs are a bit delicate. However, I am not sure how this went, I can’t really tell if it felted down or not, I’ve nothing to compare it to.

Anyhow, interesting experiment, I won’t do it this particular way again, but I am glad I gave it a try. As soon as I was done with this project, I pulled out 8 oz. of wool in order to start a Hawser plied yarn. Can’t wait to tell you more, this should be fun!