Friday, July 25, 2008

Beauty or the Beast

I can't decide about this color. It is from Wilton's copper color food dye, and I was hoping for a more coppery amberish color. This one is a bit too salmon colored. I took it to spinning night last night at Fiber Nooks and Crannies and Michelle loved it. I think I need to dye it again with a bit of brown...please weigh in with opinions or suggestions. I finished spinning this alpaca last night too. It is really soft, and overall is not as badly spun as I thought it would be. I tried to put a lot of spin into the plying after reading the Yarn Harlot's post about her tendency to underspin. I am pretty much a self taught spinner, so I gather up information where I can find it.
I also get many helpful suggestions at spinning night. It seems like there is no official right or wrong way to do many things, so I ask a question and get a variety of answers. Then I try what seems like it might work for me. Last night I asked how best to deal with this flyaway alpaca..and got the following
1. try misting it with a little water, or even a little baby oil
2. try spinning directly from roving without predrafting
3. try pulling it apart down the middle to get thin strips of roving
I tried options two and three and option three worked really well. I didn't have to predraft which eliminated the problem of the fiber fanning out and separating into tufts.
This would be much more clear with photographs..but I was too busy learning to document.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Is the coral yarn for you? Because, judging from the online photos, it would be a nice color for you. The color is pretty -- it just depends who it's intended for.