I’ve been learning to spin on my new Electric Eel Nano 1.1 spinning wheel. Haven’t abandoned the “Convert the SWSO into a real spinning wheel” project, but it’s on hold because Lowe’s HW was plumb (!) out of the PVC pipe I wanted to use for a flyer. I allocated 4 ounces of the merino top purchased from Spinaway Farm at the MDSF festival at the beginning of May to learn to spin. Most of my first bobbins were barely worth plying.
I wanted to spin something with long color changes like Noro, but there’s too much to learn for now to make that possible. I plied two singles together and got more variegation than I wanted. I don’t know how to make the colors align on the bobbins. With only six bobbins, I don’t want to tie up too many trying to align colors.
I plied the two merino singles together, and then knit a swatch to see what I got. I also plied two Shetland singles and knit them into a swatch. I had a bit of merino left on a bobbin, and a bit of Shetland left on another bobbin, so I plied those two together just to empty the bobbins. I hadn’t cast off the merino swatch yet and ran the blend into the swatch.
Bingo. I love it. The merino softens the Shetland, and the Shetland blends the merino and lets the individual colors stand out more.
Next steps: Spin out the Shetland, and work toward long color runs on the merino so the color run in more than 40-60 stitches. I also need to find a pattern for this.
