Spin Journal #12A: Silly Sally Spider Sat Spinning Silk

It's such a lovely feeling of accomplishment when you look at a finished skein of yarn. No longer are you contemplating bobbins full of singles. No longer are you sighing over the time it's taking to spin a very fine thread evenly and consistently. It's done! You can sit back and marvel at the beauty you have added to the world.

Back in November(?) I started spinning a batt I bought at Black Sheep last summer. It was a lovely batt: 40% pygora, 40% alpaca, 18% bombyx silk, and 2% yak, in a lovely shade of lavender. This was going to be my personal challenge--spin it as fine as I possibly could, and see if I could get enough for a large scarf or shawl out of its tiny two ounces, along with two ounces of something else that could be spun fine. I spun. I spun some more. Then I spun some more very fine thread. Who knew that two measly ounces could be so much!?!

I finally finished the batt, and turned to the next bit to be spun: two ounces of handpainted roving. Not just any roving: handpainted bombyx (silk) roving from Chasing Rainbows. The colorway is "Purple Haze," a variegated roving in shades of medium purple, deep purple, and silver gray. The medium shade was a match for the spun pygora, so I was looking at the possibility of creating a yarn that would have color definition both in minute detail, and over the range of several stitches. This could be interesting!

I finished spinning the silk at the end of February and started plying. I quickly discovered that, while my double-treadle Sonata is great for spinning, it's not so good for plying. I ply very fast, and, since I want to get it d.o.n.e., I try to ply everything all at once. Treadling away as fast as my little feet could go, I plyed, and plyed, and plyed, and still couldn't get more than half of the plying finished at one go. There was a lot of thread on those two bobbins! It took two days to finally finish all the plying.

Reeling the finished yarn off the bobbin was a shock--it just kept coming and coming. By the time it was finished, I had 837 yards of finished lace-weight 2-ply that tipped the scales at a tiny 123 grams (4.3 ounces). The finished yarn has been wet-finished (washed, thwacked against the side of the clawfoot tub to fluff up the fibers, and dryed). While not absolutely perfect--there are the odd slubs and occasional boucle loops from combining two strands with different characteristics--the yarn itself is a glorious combination of purple and silver. The silk, carefully spun as a true worsted, sparkles and shines, while the pygora and alpaca beg to be touched.

This finished beauty needs a design to show off its best qualities, so I'm swatching (with other laceweight) the lace pattern for a Canadian Cloud, originally published in Weldon's Practical Knitter around 1890. A Canadian Cloud is a combination hood and scarf: approximately 20 inches wide, and 72 inches long, one end of the scarf is finished with a large tassel that serves as a counterweight, while the other end is folded and sewn to create a hood. The Canadian Cloud is worn by putting the hood part on the head, then wrapping the end twice around the neck with the end thrown over the shoulder in a dashing manner. The tassel weights the end and keeps the Cloud closed. It should make a pretty, light-weight head scarf for next winter.