In Which the Pirate Sets a Record.

I don’t know if I’ve ever gone from buying something to finishing it as quickly as this – the silk that I bought at MDSW, not even two months ago, is spun and plied.

I decided to chain-ply it, and as a result it’s slightly thicker than I’d originally intended. Here’s a closeup with a strand of commercial fingering-weight yarn for comparison:

When I skeined it off, it measured 112 yards – not bad for just two ounces of fibre! I hope it isn’t too thick for what I’d intended, which is a lining for my next pair of Fleeps (flip-top mittens, since someone asked). It’s not yet time to knit those, so this will get tucked away in the stash until I’m ready to knit it up.

And… that is all the spinning I had planned prior to the Tour de Fleece beginning in a few weeks! I’m excited to try making a cabled yarn for the first time. I know I’m going to have to spin the singles really fine to come out with a cabled sock yarn – just how fine that is will have to be determined by sampling, but I’m guessing it’s going to be close to “frog hair”. Considering that the project will probably take longer than the three weeks of the Tour, I might even take the time to make a sample card with my singles (low-twist), the overtwisted two-ply yarn, and the averaged-out twist of the two strands of two-ply cabled together, both before and after washing.

(This was supposed to be somehow less ambitious than last year’s project?!)