Osborn Fiber Studio

Yesterday I shared my prep for a new sock spin: two color explorations of an analogous blue-green braid of Targhee from Craftyjaks.

The awesome thing about a spin like this, where I’m experimenting in more than one way, is that it chunks the spin into manageable, exciting pieces. Even spinning quite fine (for me), I could finish one of my six bobbins every day! For me, that’s a huge deal.

With that kind of motivation, I was done the first three singles in as many days, and spent the fourth day plying. These are the three singles from the first sock, which I spun as a fractal:

I wound the fractal singles into balls so I could ply from the first-spun end. For some reason I thought I would be more likely to get a consistently fractal-ish look from doing this, though now that I go to explain why, it doesn’t make much sense.

Anyway, the traditional 3-ply I had no such scruples about. I spun each single exactly the same. I knew the colors would line up some and overlap some, which I wanted, so I didn’t bother my head about it. Meaning I plied from the bobbins. I’ll let you know if it makes the slightest lick of difference between the socks that one was plied from first-spun end and one wasn’t.

The title of this post rather gives it away, but this whole spin was finished in 10 days. Some of you more dedicated spinners won’t see anything abnormal in that, but it’s a really big deal for me! I’ve been thinking a lot about priorities, and about being more focused in accomplishing them, and giving myself permission to choose priorities based on more than just obligation. This was some of the fruit of that.

It’s hard to say much from the skeins, except that the fractal (right) is more mixty-uppy than the traditional 3-ply (left). They actually look more similar to each other than I expected. I’m looking forward to knitting these up to see the proof in the pudding, so to speak – will they have an appreciable difference in how they stripe? Well, I have a couple things on the go at the moment, so I have to be patient. But for now, do you want to just admire the pretty yarn? Sure you do.

I adore this colourway. It’s more teal than it looks in the pictures; I don’t know much about adjusting color and didn’t want to fuss with it. You’ll have to take my word for it. If you think the pictures are lovely, it’s even nicer in person. Good job Katrina, and if I may say so, good job me!

What are you turning your hand to these days? How are you keeping your head on straight during this time of much being at home? We are mostly enjoying each other’s company, but focused projects help my sanity! How about you?