Osborn Fiber Studio

I’ve been focused on other things lately, but this last week or so I finally found the spinning mojo to go back to my Turtle Made Turkish spindle. Which is a good thing, since there were only a couple of hours of spinning left in this project!

I had great fun twirling away, spinning while catching up with Rachel’s podcasts, often listening to her discussing this very fiber. (It’s the Targhee by CraftyJaks, for the Wool n’ Spinning color study, if I haven’t mentioned that lately.) For me, there’s no motivation like participation. Tonight I found myself with all my wee turtles completed.

I spun these cops in a very specific order, having lined up the battlings in such a way as to maximize barber poling and minimize matching. There was no way I would continue to keep them organized, however, when plying time came. So I decided to try a new-to-me technique: the plying ball.

It’s a pretty straightforward idea, though these videos from Abby Franquemont and Rachel Smith gave me some tips I wouldn’t have thought of. You’re basically just winding the two plies together ahead of time. It’s mostly useful for plying on a spindle, since you may be traveling with it, and when spindling you have enough juggling going on already. I just chose it because the singles had become complicated; at this point I’d rather ply on a wheel and just get it done.

Like I said, it’s awfully simple, but I was so entertained I kept taking pictures.

This was a great way to get some sense of how the colors will line up in plying. I was mostly successful in mixing up the colors dramatically, though I did break the singles to shake things up two times: once when the colors started changing in both plies at the same time (I wanted the changes to stagger), and another time when the coral and pink lined up. They were too similar and looked solid together, compared to the other more contrasting pairings. There were a couple of points where blues lined up; I thought that’d be inevitable since 3/8 of the fiber is blue or blue-green. But the two red-brights was too much change.

I plied for a little bit, and hoo boy. I signed up for color twisting and striping, and I’m getting what I asked for in spades. It’ll be a pity if the yarn ends up being hideous, but it’ll teach me a lot!

I am full of anticipation on this ply, but I’ll save the speculation. I hope it becomes something soon, so we can discuss what happened!