In our class with Wendy, she did some basic blending with us on handcarders, and for our homework, we have to do 2 skeins, one done orthogeneous (barber poled) and another done homogeneous, which would be any blend, but the 2 singles are the same. For year one, we are spinning woolen only, so must spin a short or long draw in the woolen style. Because of this, the blending I did was on handcards, in the form of rolags.
sequence of blended rolags in a graduated colour transition. (2 rolags pre blend for 2 singles)
I have a slight hatred toward barberpoled yarn (yarn with plys of different colours, reminiscent of a barber pole), maybe it's because you see it all the time online because of spinners not really thinking about what they do with handpainted roving/tops, or maybe just because it's ugly. I choose to think the latter. I really do hate barber poled yarn. So I didn't even take a picture of the orthogeneous skein I did. I got really ugly colours too for the homework. *(we are given fibre to use for the homework assignments, so don't get to choose colours)*.
hand blended gradation on hand carders. 9wpi plied.
For the homogeneous skein, we just had to do some kind of a blend in which both the singles in the 2 ply would be the same. So instead of just doing a 70/30 blend or some other ratio remaining consistent, I decided to work out all the ratio and maths for a graduated colour blend in 6 parts. My final skein going from midnight blue (barf) to sea green (barf) and the 4 blends between being gradual ratios. The 2 singles had to be as identical as possible, so I split the colours in two first off, and then just weighed the fibres out for the 6 different blends. I then blended each grouping into two rolags on my handcards so it'd be nice and easy to just spin one of each rolag on one bobbin and then repeat! It worked out very well, and I only had a few extra inches of one bobbin which I andean plied so there was no waste. The blend was less segmented than I expected too. If I was to do a bigger skein like this, which I am thinking about doing for my final woolen article, I'll do it on my drum carder. But the handcards work very well and are quick too, so I'll have to decide at a later point. Even if I want to spin from rolags, I can take the drum carded batt, split it lengthwise and roll lengthwise into mini rolags.
Another big challenge I took on for these skeins was the yarn weight. It's so easy to spin even thin/lace yarns, and it's very easy to spin a varying weight bulkier yarn, but it's very hard to be consistent and spin a nice even bulky yarn, about wpi plied. You see alot of this weight of yarn, but it's not very even. So anyway, I did fairly well and am happy with this assignment overall. except for the barf colour combination. ;)
And here's my fatty bo batty resting on noodle's knee. She's a reverse gremlin, and after you feed her she gets really cuddly.
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