Adventures in Spinning, Part VII

Have a quick look at what's on my wheel: It's a 70/30 Merino/Silk blend from The Sanguine Gryphon in the Standing Stones colorway. I got a pound of it from The Loopy Ewe and am spinning it up kinda skinny in practice for spinning the wool for the Iona Sweater.

I love this fiber, and it's a new project for me - to be spinning something with silk in it. I'm using the largest whorl on my fast flyer, and it's getting enough twist to hold the silk together - pretty easy though, for it to fly apart if I'm not paying good attention at the wheel.

I haven't talked about the Iona Sweater recently - that project has been sort of on the back burner while I got to be a better spinner but it's actually how this entire spinning adventure got started. And now, I'm feeling like I'm ready to spin what's going to be 3+ pounds of finished wool. With PatsyZ's help I found a fleece from Moon Shadow Farm - a beautiful while Corriedale - that I will pick up at the Michigan Fiber Festival next month and the Iona wool will be blended with the fleece and processed by Ohio Valley Natural Fibers. And then, this fall, I will start spinning. And spinning ;-D

I've been spinning for just over a year now, and having things fall into place to actually make this sweater is really exciting to me. I picked up a great new book with some late birthday money from my Iona sister, Tori. It's called A Fine Fleece. It's chock full of Arans, shown in both commercial yarn and handspun. It's perfect for me, and I could (and probably will) happily make pretty much every single pattern in there. Don't you love it when you find a book like that? :-) The pattern I thought would become the Iona Sweater, won't, because I found another this past weekend in that book! I switched from a pullover (Celtic Dreams) to a cardigan (October Frost). Celtic Dreams will still get made, just not likely out of handspun.

It's going to be an exciting ride :-)