So the worsted spinning is coming along fine. I just need to wait until tomorrow to ply it.
But today I want to talk about my big adventure! Last night I did some core spinning. It was the first time EVER!! I had watched youtube videos and had some idea of what I was doing but as it turned out I had no idea at all!

I had a little bit of fluff left over from my worsted spinning that was every which way and so I couldn't add it to my worsted spin. Perfect for a bit of core spinning practice I thought. I had some commercial brown yarn in my stash, so, using it as the core I started. First mistake - I attached the core not the fluff to my wheel. Then I spun merrily away. I had the tension all wrong on my wheel and the yarn became very twisty. Still I had got the fluff sort of spun up.
Then today I thought I'd try again with some Hebridean fleece that I'd combed out, and, second mistake -some string as the core. Well I'm very glad I used the white string because boy did it show up my errors. This time I attached the fluff to the wheel first, good girl, and let it run on at the end, thus fixing the string into the yarn, so I had learnt something! Then to compound my errors I plied the two together. That's where I really came unstuck. The yarn on the string began sliding up and down thus revealing the core. To make matters worse I tried to attach some keys and stones to the yarn too. These things were attached to long silk threads and actually spun into the yarn OK, but all around the fluff came undone.

Oh well. At least now when I take another look at the videos it will make more sense to me.
The next time I will use a toning core so that it doesn't show up my mistakes and I will not add things at the same time. Just try to get a proper core-spun yarn first then do the fancy bits later! Hmm, a steep learning curve methinks.

   

The Call to Adventure

Today I wanted to explain about the yarn I hope to produce. First of all I found this fibre in my stash. It came from The Painted Tiger. The colours are quite somber and call to me. Dark earthy reds and browns from my before life and ending with a beautiful turquoise that represents my new-found confidence and communication skills.

There were quite a lot of repeats of the colour sequence. Before, when faced with this I had just split the top into two or three equal lengths and barber-poled it. I had even done a fractal spin which was interesting, but each time I had left the colour sequence as it was originally intended . This time I wanted to do something different, So, with heart in mouth I split the top into the three dominant colours as well as I was able and then split each pile into three equal piles by weight.

(Sorry about the fuzzy photo) I split it into three piles as my goto yarn is a 3-ply worsted about sock weight. This would give me three singles of approximately the same colour striping and with only one colour repeat. For me this is already a great adventure!!
However to be even more adventurous I am spinning the singles much tighter than I usually do to represent the uptightness of my life before I found out about friendship!!

To take this even further out of my comfort zone I plan to add little keys on silk thread and little stones too! As the orifice of my wheel is quite small I will add these as I do the final plying, probably to the red and brown bits, leaving the turquoise unadulterated.