I'm still well into the spinning bug, and for the first time in years, I only knitted twice this week! Once on the Tuesday Yarn and Yarn meeting, and the other at the Cardiff Knitters knitmeet. I thought I would show you what I've been up to.

Two things have been on my mind lately; dyeing and different spinning methods. I love spinning dyed roving/tops because the colour changes keep me from getting too bored, but at the same time, I enjoy dyeing yarn because I can play with the colours and know exactly where they should be! As for the spinning methods, so far, I'm most comfortable with worsted spinning, and only began experimenting with rolags after I got my hand carders a little while back. When I first started spinning I had no idea that there were so many techniques and was quite overwhelmed, so August is officially my 'try everything at least once' time when it comes to spinning! I have gone through the entire Joy of Hand Spinning website learning new things everyday!

This bobbin holds approximately 80g of my 'experiment yarn'; I had some undyed superwash merino in my stash which I used to practice different spinning methods. Some sections are spun in the pure worsted way, others from the fold, some were long draw, and chunks of it was spun from a rolag, so really, it's all over the place! The photo shows the yarn after I Navajo plied it, and measures around 23WPI. I'm sure sections are going to bloom more than others after dyeing and washing, because of my ad hoc spinning, but I'm sure I'll love it just the same! This yarn is destined for the dye pot next for part 2 of the experiment; will my handspun look good kettle dyed?! It seems to me that it wants to be purple.

Now this is 120g of my kettle-dyed superwash merino fibre, I used acid dyes in blue, and green and got this gorgeous cocktail of smooshyness!

I tried to fit as much of it as possible on my tiny bobbin (I managed just about 108g before I had to stop!), and I'm going to N-ply it tonight and see which of the 2 yarns I prefer. I can already be sure that this one is going to be MUCH more even since I spun the entire fibre worsted using the backwards short draw method.

Not really a part of my August spinnning learning curve, but very related to spinning, I present to you my still-curly spindle spun merino singles!

I sometimes like to take a break from the treadling and just go back to basics with my drop spindle. This is, once again, superwash merino, dyed with food colouring. I overloaded the spindle to the point where I feared the entire mass of spun yarn was going to just slip off the shaft! 60g on my spindle is a first for me... The skein has already been wound into a ball, and I had to frog 2 shawlette beginnings because the yarn doesn't seem to 'match' what's in my head. For now, this yarn is going to live in my stash until I can figure out what to do with it!