One of these skeins is not like the others...

Remember the Sesame Street Song?  "One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong…"

Well, I did some woolen spinning for the first time during Spinzilla.  Then I tried to go back to my short forward draft to spin the third skein for my Color Affection shawl.  Can you see the results in the pictures?

The two on the ends were spun before Spinzilla.  The one in the middle was done during Spinzilla.  

My skeins go like this:

     Skein 1; 100 g, 258 yd

     Skein 2: 80 g, 215 yd 

     Skein 3: 90 g, 168 yd

Normalized per 50 g, that:

     Skein 1: 129 yd

     Skein 2: 134 yd

     Skein 3: 93 yd

Besides the yardage being so different, the feel of the yarn is quite different: fluffy, airy….woolen spun!

My goal was to match KnitPicks Palette, as I mentioned in this post.  Trouble is, I didn't notice until just now that I'm DOUBLE what I thought!

Here I was saying, Pallete has 213 yd/ 50 g, so I'm doing well  at 258.  But that's for 100 g!  What's my problem?  I was planning to simply spin another skein 3, but now I might just have to start all over.  Hrumph.

Math for Color Affection

I gathered information from seven knitters of color affection who were kind enough to be very specific about how much yarn they used.  Thanks, ladies!  The trouble is, the yardage varies dramatically.  And it's not even consistent which color you need the most of!  But I've compiled a little table of the results:

Number	MC in yds	CC1 in yds	CC2 in yds
1	217	167	243
2	277	173	217
3	250	211	277
4	256	224	250
5	277	231	300
6	293	254	231
7	277	185	250
Highest	293	254	300
Average	264	206	252

I think number 6 is an outlier in the data.  If I throw those numbers out, my averages are:
MC: 259 yds, CC1: 199 yds,  CC2: 256 yds.  If I spin consistently at 258 yd/50 gm, that would be:
MC: 50.2 gm, CC1: 37.3 gm, CC2: 49.6 gm.

So how much should I spin?  I would love to make all the yardage come out perfect, with no waste, but I know that's setting myself up for trouble.  I think I'll call  my first 50 gm CC2, use the 40 gm bunch for CC1, and add some to the make a 55 gm bunch for the MC.

Spinning for Color

I finally wound my first 50 grams of plied yarn for Color Affection into a skein.

I'm very happy with the look and feel of the yarn.  I was aiming to match Knit picks Palette, because others had used that for the Color Affection successfully.  50 g of Palette has 231 yards.  My skein came in at 258 yards.  Whoohoo!

Now here's the problem.  I've looked at a lot of finished projects on Ravelry that used the Palette Yarn, and almost all of them used more yarn than I just spun.  What did I look at before?  I know it was weight, not length.  I'm wondering if I need to add fiber to one of my other chunks to make more yarn.  Trying to make it come out just perfect seems like a recipe for disaster.

Spinning for Color Affection

If you follow Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, theYarn Harlot, you might have read her posts about the Color Affection shawl.  The desire to knit it became so great at one retreat that they started calling the Color Infection, which seems true because the infection was so strong it reached over the internet.  I've been dying to make this shawl ever since.  

I'm on a yarn diet, however, and despite many looks through the stash, I found nothing right to knit it with.  I even managed to resist a sale at Knit Picks on the right yarn.  I kept telling myself I had many too many other projects to finish first.  

Happily, I finally remembered that I have fiber in my stash too.  

This is some wool-ish roving I've had for a year or two.  I say wool-ish because it is mill ends guaranteed to be at least 80% wool.  There is something else really shiny and fluffy in there every now and then.  I tried a burn test, and I don't think it's synthetic, so I'm hoping it's tussah.  It sure feels silky.

I read a lot of people's finished projects on Ravelry, to try to decide how much to spin.  I finally split off segments of 50 g, 45 g, and 40 g for each of the three colors.  I decided to spin first and dye after, though that decision alone took me a few days.

I just finished plying up the 50 gram bit.  It has just a touch of brown in it, but is mostly creamy white right now.  I still have to decide on colors for the finished shawl!

Yarn Diet

I've just re-dedicated myself to my yarn diet.  The idea came to me from Wendy, who said she wasn't going to buy any more yarn until she had used up every bit of everything in her stash.  Wow.  I've been watching all sorts of great things come off her needles and hooks since then.  She makes whatever the yarn will work for.

I couldn't bring myself to be that good.  I decided to knit only out of my stash for a year.  Then I added the exception that I could buy yarn I needed for a gift.  Then sales became an exception too.  My stash is now bigger and better than ever.  I mean worse, don't I?

I've been knitting away, but I really have to make the yarn I have fit in the space I have, so it's back on the diet again.  I am committed not to buy yarn until all that I have fits in the bins I have for yarn.  (Should I admit how many bins there are?)  

The only trouble is...I'm hooked on a pattern, thinking about it all the time, and I don't have any yarn for it.  In all those bins, nothing will work.

But I remembered I have a spinning wheel.  And a fiber stash.