Friday, November 16, 2012

More on the super challenge

I decided to put my challenge more to the test than just a little sample.  I mean, if I'm going to make a commitment to undo enough yarn and re-spin it for a whole scarf, I needed to make sure my plan really worked.

My first method didn't work.  It was trying to pull large amounts of yarn out of a center-pull ball and take it apart.  There was too much energy in the yarn and it just didn't want to come off the ball really easily.  My second idea was to take segments and then when I am spinning, re-attach them back together.  So I took about 1 yard segments apart and spun them back together as singles.  Then I took 3 singles and plied them together.

Here are my original balls of yarn:
 


The center ball was something I wanted to try and stretch further anyway, so this was a good choice to try my new ideas on.  Also, I wanted to see what this looked like with a faded yarn.

I cut sections about a yard long, and each was a 4-ply yarn, so I re-spun each as singles, but there were 3 singles about 4 yards long.  Then, I spun each of them together as a 3-ply yarn:




This is 2-ply, because it was the tail end and I ran out of the pink:



Kind of neat, eh?!  It makes the super colorful yarn a little more toned down, and brings in more solid colors.  I wonder what this would look like all woven up!  I also wonder if it looks or feels different, or if you can see a difference in the plies if you look close.  I also wonder how it mixes with the original commercially done yarns.


It really does open up some doors though!  It's a little bit of extra work, but if you don't have the right shade or size, you could potentially change that!