Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Learning Curve

After spending the majority of last week finishing off my Spin-A-Long fiber and knitting, I've started to get back to work for my Etsy shop.

Today I finished spinning some sock yarn (tomorrow I ply- yay!) and I also finished up with the first of the merino rovings from the dyepot, which turned out pretty good...



The last merino rovings I dyed came out okay (they spin up fine), but there were still a few neps and they were still a bit fuzzier on the outside than I cared for. This new roving is the least fuzzy I have done so far.



The last few months I've spent a good deal of time reading (particularly through the hand-dyeing forums on Ravelry, which have been incredibly helpful) and I think I've finally found a dye method that suits me. It's helping me to get a more interesting-looking roving, there's no felting and the fuzz problem seems to be going away more and more as I get better.

I'm aiming to eventually do more spinning fiber than yarn. I love making handspun and always want to have it available, but I've been noticing lately that I rarely get to keep any for myself anymore. I think that having the rovings available will help to keep the shop from being so empty when I need some 'me' spinning time (at least that's the way it worked in my mind). I also want to offer more handspun that is made from my own hand-dyed fibers (though I still plan on offering handspuns from other fiber artists to keep things interesting).

I still have about a pound and a half of fiber left to dye and I'm hoping to have those rovings all done in the next couple of weeks. I have 3-4 more rovings that are in line to become handspun (including a merino/bamboo and a merino/silk) and when everything is done I'll be doing another update. Though it may be a while longer than usual as I'm doing a few 3-plys.

I'll try to have more pictures and details of my progress as I go, 'till then, cheers. =)

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