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The fiber report

Posted on | July 19, 2007 | 6 Comments

It wasn’t all hiking in Tennessee.  On the longer-than-I’d-remembered drive up and back, I knit exclusively on my Argosy Wrap.  I had dyed small bits of roving in the microwave, just playing around, and I thought they would coordinate with the colors in the wrap thus far.

And they might have, if I’d plied them with each other, instead of with themselves.  Ugh.  I do not like the bold stripes of single colors.  I didn’t like it while I was knitting it, but I soldiered on, thinking that in the overall piece, the solid stripes wouldn’t be that noticeable and might actually lend interest.  Who was I kidding!  Unless I can dye up some colors that will coordinate better, I’m going to have to rip.  The bottom section and the following section that looks identical to it?  They were dyed many months apart.  The question is whether or not I can repeat the results and honestly, it’s not likely.  Especially since I’m down to like 4 oz. of undyed roving.

But dyed roving?  Man, I’ve got your dyed roving!  We arrived in Gatlinburg just in time to visit Smokey Mountain Spinnery.  The owner was very nice and helpful and I surprised myself by pretty much ignoring all the yarn (Trekking, Tilli Thomas) and going straight for the roving.  This is what I got:

8 oz. of pewter merino/tussah silk blend

4 oz. each of another merino/tussah blend and baby alpaca.  I’ve only tried to spin alpaca once and made a mess of it but I’m hoping to have better luck with this.  I think all of this is from Ashland Bay.  And I think I’m becoming a fiber snob because once I realized this was commercially prepared roving, widely available, it lost a bit of its luster for me.  Not that I don’t think it’ll be some gorgeous stuff, but it’s not HAND DYED, or HAND BLENDED.  I’m such a freak.  I’m not snobby about anything else – I don’t care what kind of car I or anyone else drives, I don’t care about the brand of clothing you wear, I abhor name droppers.  I scoff at fashion trends.  But when it comes to fiber, all bets are off.  The more unique, the better.

Do I have any of this on my bobbins?  Nooooo…..I had to spin-on (don’t you think spinners should have an equivalent to “cast-on”?) some merino I’d dyed last month.

The first bobbin’s done, the second has just been started (spun-on?).  I hope to finish it up this weekend, but I have no idea what I’ll do with it! 

I really need to get a game plan together. 

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