Swimming in Sea Lavender

Not much mental/emotional capacity for words, so some pictures and brief blurbs will hopefully suffice :) Gripped with the uncontainable urge to SPIN late last week and all this weekend, I cleared out my studio, unpacked boxes and arranged furniture in a mad scramble to produce a clear, spin-worthy environment. Took some lovely fleece, some of my loveliest in stash, the Treetops Colour Harmonies in Sea Lavender, gifted me by Skoot for my birthday this year.

Using the wheel I still have on hire from the Guild (I'm on the look out for my very on Ashford Traveller) I spun up first on bobbin..

...Then a second a little later.

My desire is to make a little bolero or such from the yarn I produced with the lovely fibre, but I don't know if I'll have enough =\ I had spun the yarn at a certain thickness/thinness and varying that width of thread, with the intention of plying the two bobbins together to create a lovely rustic style, artful type yarn. But now I wonder whether that will leave me enough to make the desired shrug or bolero from.. I'd like to make an article I can wear, rather than just an accessory like beanie, scarf or neck-warmer...

I have some silk throwsters waste in the matching colourway and am thinking I'll spin the remaining amount of fibre with this silk as well, to give a different texture to that yarn. I will then hopefully use this silky, textured, exciting yarn at the cuffs or border of whatever I make. I cracked out the drum carder and tried carding the silk a little - as it is so densely tangled as the throwsters waste. And it worked fabulously!

Silk is a very strong fibre, I hear, which proved itself as I was carding, it doesn't appear damaged at all, but much fluffier and, hopefully, more easily spinnable post-carding!

You can see here the carded silk on the left, and un-carded on the right. It's good to finally get some use of the drum carder too :) More carding, spinning and plying will follow soon, but for now there's a rather exciting book I'm still devouring...