Not What I Thought, a Story of Handspun Yarn

More handspun to show you!!! I love spinning. I do it when I don’t have an urgent project…or when I feel like avoiding my work.

So, I have this Malabrigo Nube in colorway #866 Arco Iris. It is very colorful. When I got this roving I expected that it would produce very loud, bright yarn.

Then when I began to spin it, I worried that the yarn would be really ugly, because I was getting lots of yellowish-brown. I am not really a big fan of brown.

 

 

All the way through spinning the singles of the first batt I really was not sure if the yarn would turn out nice. Even though some sections were much prettier than the yellowish-brown, I felt very unsure about how it would look once all the colors were mixed together in plying.

I am pleased to say that this yarn turned out to be beautiful, but not at all what I thought it would look like! It reminds me of the pattern on my mom’s china, and of heirloom quilts that my husband and I have from our great-grandmothers. I think if I were going to name this colorway I would call it “Antique Rose” or “Antique Treasure”.

 

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Then, I spun up the second batt of roving and got interesting results again. This time the yarn was a little more like what I thought it would be, but markedly different from the skeins of the first batt, even though they are the same colorway and dye lot.

These skeins had a lot more purple and green in them than the first batt.

Here are all the finished skeins. The 3 on the left are from the first batt, and the 3 on the right are from the second batt. I love them all. The pictures don’t do them justice. I am excited to make something with these to see how the color story continues to unfold in the stitching. I’m leaning towards an infinity scarf/cowl.

What do you think? Do you like it? Does it seem like a surprising result based on the look of the roving? What would you name it? What would you make with it?

 

Looking for other posts about spinning? Look here:

If your yarn breaks while spinning, here’s how to fix it

Handy tip for using a drop spindle

Simple knitting pattern that works well for colorful handspun yarn

Make your own drop spindle with clay and a crochet hook!

 

Happy spinning!
April