Monday 14 April 2014

A study in orange

I discovered when I was about seventeen that I'm able to wear orange well. It's a strange colour, orange - people either love it or hate it. I happen to love it, so being able to wear it makes me very happy.

Consequently, my stash features a lot of this delightful hue. I'm working on a delicious orange shawl at the moment (in cobweb-weight Posh), but I've mostly been playing with orange handspun recently.

I decided to do some experimenting with a braid of bamboo/merino that I bought at the first Knit Nation. I had never tried spinning bamboo before, nor did I particularly have any desire to. However, it was literally the only orange fiber I was able to find in the entire marketplace. It's been sitting in my stash ever since while I decided what to do with it. I was taken with the urge to master singles yarn, so out came the orange. It was horrifically compacted. Not felted, which was good, but it took me most of an hour to fluff it out enough to spin. And once I'd unbraided it, I discovered that the bamboo wasn't blended in very well. In fact, it was almost possible to just pluck it out entirely. I didn't, of course, but I ended up with rather barber-poled yarn.

Merino/bamboo singles

I'm happy with it overall. It's pretty, and I managed to have it not be wiry. I like very tightly spun and plied yarns for the most part, so it was difficult to keep the twist to a minimum. 250-odd yards, 105g. Once it came off the wheel I fulled it slightly with alternating hot and cold baths, and then beat it on the side of the bath.

After that, I dug some older orange handspun out of the stash. This was from some batts I won on Ravelry. It's very soft and fluffy, but I had no idea what to do with it until Heraldic Friend pointed out that I'd never made anything for her daughter, who happens to be my niece in the SCA. This was an appalling state of affairs, so I resolved to make something for my lady Makeblise immediately.

The result of this was a pixie hat. It'll be a bit big for her right now (it's nearly big enough for me), but I was determined that she'd not outgrow it in less time than it took to make.

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1 comment:

Sara L. Uckelman said...

I told Gwen the other day that Aunty Constanza was sending her a present in the mail, and today I showed her the picture of the hat, and she was terribly disappointed that she didn't have the hat Right Now so she could wear it out to daycare. I'm sure she'll be tickled when it arrives!