During TdF, while wandering through all my followed blogs, I came across a blog post at A Little More Abstract that described something very intriguing to me. It was a description of a Monet spin. Now, in the blog post it is indicated that the spinning technique is inferred, without the book or article. But, the description was interesting to me, whether it be accurate or not, and I wanted to give it a try.

As my fiber stash is getting dangerously low, and I wasn’t sure I had what I wanted for this particular technique, I chose a couple colors from Dyeabolical’s shop. I actually picked up two colorways I thought would work well with this technique, in case I really liked it.

The first is Sophia, the colorway in today’s post.

Now, the technique as I understand it is to split the fiber in half, spin one half as is, in top form, and the other half gets blended on hand cards. So, I got this colorway on targhee wool as I figured it would be easy to work with while retaining a nice bounce.

I split the wool top vertically. I then split the “as is” half into 6 strips. I then began blending the other half. My hand card technique is rusty rusty! My rolags aren’t amazing this time, but I don’t think it really matters. The idea is to get a blended color, and I got that.

It’s certainly far more muted than the original dyed top. I am pretty close to being halfway through the first half, and it’s going well!

I am quite eager to see how this bobbin looks next to the one spun straight from the top.

I’ve kept this a pretty thin spin, I think in part because I have this feeling I am going to love the technique and want just as much yardage as I can possibly get!

I’ve got a few more vacation photos to share. Now, when we were kids, all the cousins were thick as thieves. Just having an amazing time together. For awhile there, the cousins were having a baby a year, collectively. So, at the reunion we had ages 13-17 represented in second cousins. It took them a bit to warm up to each other but by the final night, they too were thick as thieves.

I got this quick shot of them all on the hammock, before they ran off and climbed out on the house roof. Just like us cousins would have been likely to do.

We spent some time with my newest nephew, only 5 months old. He’s an extremely happy and content baby. A ton of fun, full of smiles, and very engaging. Not much fussing out of this guy!

And of course my older nephew adored Miss Butterfly and wouldn’t leave her side.

In the first photo, they are “hiding” from Mr. Ink, who was chasing them around the house as some sort of monster. Very cute. I also grabbed a great shot of my brother with his boys which I loved.

It’s no surprise to me he’s such a good dad, he’s always made a great uncle to Miss Butterfly.

One last shot of Miss Butterfly and Mr. Ink having ice cream at quincy market.

Mr. Ink’s exclamation: “I THINK I JUST PAID $30 FOR ICE CREAM!” It wasn’t quite that bad, and they needed a snack. I don’t care for ice cream, so I got a homemade lemonade instead, and of course they suddenly thought they should have sips of that too. No.

I think this wraps up my vacation photos finally. Less than a week after we came back, so not too bad!