The Shetland Who Wants to Be Pretty Returns...

And this time it's in yarn form.

My wee Shetland fleece has been all spun up.



It started out as a fleece that had tons of cross-fibering. It was clean and didn't have any other terrible flaws aside from the fact that it looked like it had been carded already. It was hard to pull out individual locks, but they weren't so stuck together where I was getting tears and breaking the fleece. I didn't pay a whole lot for it and I washed it up in the bathtub with no issues. It was taking the leap from fleece in a bag under my bed to usable product that was hanging me up.

I had the brilliant idea to turn it into roving at the Loop spin-in, and blended it with a good deal of tussah silk that I had dyed up. It gave it a rich, slightly metallic sheen. I threw in some angora I had lying around for good measure.





I spun it up as thick as I can and now I have an Aran-weight 2ply.


It didn't take me that long- I whipped through the almost 2 lbs of roving an just a couple weeks- but I've been lazy about plying. Having time to sit down in front of the wheel to finish everything has been a huge challenge.



It's lovely- I really enjoyed spinning this and I was a little melancholic when the last bit of it got sucked onto the bobbin. The staple on the shetland was very long, and the silk reinforced that, so I didn't been much twist in the singles. I plied it tightly though because I love the way a tightly plied yarn looks- so neat and orderly. I have 5 skeins plied up so far, all with 110-160 yards a piece (yeah, I know. I have to work on my consistency). In the end, I'll have enough for a small sweater. I love the fact that it's not so blended that the silk didn't get lost here.

So aside from resolving to get more spinning done (and knitting and cooking and organizing and weaving and dyeing and jewelry-making and blogging and learning new languages and doing yoga and everything else that I feel like my skills are constantly withering away) I will have to eventually pick a project for this yarn.

Meanwhile, as my spinning stash gets spun up and the knitting stash gets knitted, I keep getting my AVFKW club in the mail. Luckily, they are small bumps.



This is "Cherry Blossom", a blend of Alpaca/Silk and Merino/Silk.



This one is "Ambrosial", which is a nice soft chunk of Targhee. I love how dark and saturated with color it is. I should probably discontinue this club for a bit. I now have 11 little bumps of fiber in need of being spun up. It's starting to add up and I'm just not spinning fast enough. The colors and fibers are so gorgeous though. I don't think there has been one month where I wasn't thrilled with the colors.

I promise an etsy update soon- I have a huge stack of freshly dyed yarn and roving that I need to get listed. Also, a giveaway of sorts, but it's going to take some thought and some organizing on my part and I really do want to go on vacation sometime this summer, so it might be a little while until that happens.