My Lovely Red Yarn

Two skeins, plied, washed and hanging to dry! (I’ll post pix of the completed skeins once they are dry. Can you contain your excitement?) I just checked on my babies, and they are drip-drying quite nicely, and they are hanging nice and straight with no twisting and I’m a happy spinner mama.

Yes, I’m quite new at all of this, and yes, I’m thrilled with myself! I MADE YARN. I made *red* yarn! Now, how cool is this?

Back to my Andean Paperback Ply – the first book I selected was not actually a paperback, but a child’s picture book, If I Went Sailing Out to Sea, which has a “waist” measurement of about 12 inches. This one worked out nicely, but it was a bit large. The next one I tried was Letters From the Earth, with a measurement of approximately 9.5 inches. It was OK, but just a tad too small for my rather large hands. Next time, I’m going to try using Lonesome Dove, which measures about 11.25 inches, and I think that this one will be Just Right. The Popsicle stick worked well, too, but next time, I’m going to sand it with fine sandpaper, as it was a bit rough.




Also – it defies reason, but these Andean Ply Bracelets are really tough! I slid the things on and off of my hand, numerous times, each time certain that it was going to come apart, but it never did. The wool must Velcro together in some magic way. Hmmm….

Someone on the Spindlers list mentioned that she’s had trouble with Andean Ply and the single getting tangled up inside of the bracelet. Well, ignorance is bliss and all that…. This is only my third try, and so far, I’ve had no problems. I am still amazed because it *does* seem like it ought to create an awful mess, but the single just slides off of the hand and voila! Yarn…

I agree with that emailer in that I much prefer the Navajo ply, but I really wanted to learn how to do the Andean method. This, plus the fact that I really want to make a thin vest out of this red roving, and I didn’t think that I’d be able to spin this particular roving thin enough to end up with a thin, Navajo Plied yarn.

I have so many projects in front of this vest, that I wonder if I'll ever get it done? It's certainly fun to dream about it!