I call the Sherbert Yarn a success! You know when February was being so awful to me, and then I decided to set up some resolutions for March which all involved spinning? One of my ambitions is to wheel-spin all of my hand-prepared Cheviot Fleece, which has been sitting in my WIP basket as rolags for the last, oh, six months or so.

When I say hand-prepared, what I mean is that I was sent the raw fleece and carded (combed) it myself, rolled it into cylinders known as rolags, and it can be spun in that way. I have completed my first ball! I’m very proud of it, and for reasons that should hopefully be obvious, I’ve decided to call it Sherbert Yarn, thus renaming it from Cheviot Yarn Attempt One.

[If you are a non-spinner, please check out my new page “Spinning Techniques and Terms“, which will hopefully explain a few things. It’s very new so will be developed a lot as time progresses (and my skills do as well!)]

Sherbert Yarn

There are actually three skeins of yarn on here – I was impatient and didn’t want to wash all three seperately! [I spun the wool ‘in the grease’ – which means I didn’t wash it before I spun it.] I made a big mistake with my plying – I spun one set of singles with a z-twist, and another set with an s-twist. Basically, for one set the spinning wheel was rotating clockwise, and for the other, it was spinning anti-clockwise! Big BAD, Corrie.

I asked some people on Ravelry for help with this and they all agreed that it was an ‘art’ yarn and shouldn’t come to any harm. I haven’t decided what I’m going to do with it yet – maybe make a pair of mittens for myself. I’m not an accomplished spinner at all and it’s a lot rough. I won’t want it near my skin, so if it’s going to be touching skin, it will need to be lined. The other option I have is to make a blanket of squares with this, and future yarns. What do you think?

I have 87 yards, and it comes out at 10 wpi, which is between a DK and an aran weight yarn. This is a very loose measurement – it’s nowhere near as lumpy as my first handspun, but oh goodness it’s not smooth by any stretch of the imagination.

I dyed the yarn with Dr Oetker Gel Food Colour, in blue and green. I used a ChemKnits tutorial. Even if you don’t spin, there are some incredible tutorials for dying natural fibres – just buy cream yarn from your LYS and you can have fun! This is why I called it “Sherbert Yarn” – it looks just like sherbert that we used to get in Zimbabwe.

I nearly had the same result as the last time I tried to do this kind of dying. Luckily, it did work eventually.

There are so many other things I could expand upon in this blog-post, but I can’t really give you any more information in this one as I have to go to bed! I’m having another dental ‘procedure’ tomorrow. The second of three and I’m less scared about it than I was last week. Here’s to hoping it goes well.

How was your weekend?

Much love,

Corrie xx