This was a fun spin. The base fiber is from Two If By Hand. It's BFL, and dyed in the "Thunder and Lightning" colorway, but this is a gradient version of it (meaning instead of short bands of dye color application, the colors run in longer sections from one end of the braid to the other, with each color only used once).
The original roving looked like:
I decided I wanted to keep this as a singles yarn, to preserve the long color runs, but I also decided that when I get around to using it, I wanted to knit a small top-down shawl, probably semi-circular, or possible half-hexagonal. Either way, the rows in that type of shawl construction start out short, and then get progressively longer as you reach the hem. So..... I decided I would like the bands of striping to stay relatively equal as I knit down the shawl.
With that in mind, I split the roving lengthwise into the equivalent of 6 long pieces, and then spun 1/6, 2/6 and 3/6 (holding the 2 and 3 strips together, and matching up the color bands), so that the yarn would have varying lengths of color blocks from short to long. I wound up with 508 yards of laceweight singles from the 4-oz braid.
I have no idea if this will actually knit up in the fashion I've envisioned, but either way, it'll be fun to see how the color progression works.
All for now....
Wow, what a cool idea! I would never think to do something like that.
Posted by: Yarndude | May 18, 2012 at 10:21 AM
It looks incredible spun up. Your approach sounds like it will work and if nothing else, I'm sure the shawl will be stunning even if it doesn't do what you expect.
Posted by: Toby | May 18, 2012 at 11:58 AM