Remember Bess? I’ve spun quite a bit o’ Bess in the past year. Every bobbin is different. In some cases, very different. They can be light grey to charcoal, or maybe even to brown. It’s made me wonder how to handle the irregular tones in a project. I could dye it. I could separate it into like colors and use it for many different projects. Of course, there will be assorted projects. Bess started out at 9lbs. Saturday, as I sat playing with the Turkish spindle and a handful of Bess, it came to me. I would blend it with something with color, not too much, but enough to shift it to a tweed. And there, next to me, was a lovely bag of roving from the Persimmon Tree. Barn 31? It’s always in the same place at the very end of the barn. Lovely stuff, usually a wool / mohair / maybe some llama, in luscious colorways.
My first thought was to make one bobbin of bess and another of the multi and then ply them barber pole. When knitted they would make a pronounced tweed. I spun a bit on my spindle to test it out. Nice. Not quite what I wanted. I decided to blend it with the carder.
I’m having fun with it. For every few hand fulls of Bess I put on the carder, I put a layer of multicolored fiber.
If you live in the Northeast, you know that the weekend was wet and very windy; snowy too, depending on how far north you were. That meant I had plenty of time to spend indoors. Saturday was the monthly Spin In at RI Handspun, That got me going on my spinning. By the time I went home, I’d managed to ply up a couple bobbins of Lincoln I had spun during the summer and spin a bobbin of a medium brown Austalian wool that I picked up somewhere and wanted to think about. I’ve been spinning and dyeing the Lincoln all summer, a couple skeins at a time, to use for a rug hooking project I’ve been thinking about. It was also time to clear some bobbins in preparation for the Gathering this coming weekend. By dinner time Sunday I felt like I had accomplished something. It’s been a while since I had a spinning weekend. Felt great.
Comments
8 responses to “dressing up Bess”
Great idea for handling those variations that occur!(I may have to try that sometime)…
And Greta always has quality roving..you have made a beautiful blend!
That is gorgeous! You have a drum carder? Is it in the Kingdom? If so, maybe you WILL convince me to make a drive up there. I’ve got that Polwarth that needs to be carded or combed, and I have neither tool. 🙂
Oh, those batts! Simply gorgeous! I’m glad you had a productive weekend. All we did was socialize. 😉
I got some roving from Persimmon Tree too- in the colorway Blueberry. Great idea to mix the two. The basket is lovely- also from Rhinebeck. I eyed one and walked away- mistake.
I give up…couldn’t find Bess with your link. So, what kind of sheep is she, anyway? I’m processing the nine pound Romney that followed me home from Rhinebeck and am looking for ideas!
Lovely! Apparently it was the weekend for spinning. I filled up 2 bobbins of singles myself (and did a little knitting and weaving, just to put the icing on). 🙂
Bess is beautiful! Love the bit of color you’ve added.
Love the hints of color! Looking forward to seeing this yarn knit up.