Today was a busy day with church and then a BBQ so I didn’t even touch my spinning until after the kids went to bed. I’d had a rough day so I decided to just spin what would make me happy. Today that was the June 2009 Spunky Club fiber: “Selfish”. It’s Shetland which is a new fiber for me. Ms. Paperclips gave me a fabulous idea last knit night: fractal spinning!
Fractal spinning is a way to play with the color changes in handpainted fiber. I prepped the fiber by dividing it in half lengthwise. One of these lengths after being spun will make up 1 ply and will have long runs of color. The other length gets split in half width wise. Then one of those halves is split again. And then repeat once more. This leaves you with progressively narrower and narrower strips of fiber with shorter and shorter runs of color. Those narrower strips are spun to create the second ply. I’ve seen a bunch of pictures on Ravelry of fractal spun yarn and it’s pretty cool. We’ll see how I do!
Upper left: Spunky Club June 09. Upper Right: Fiber prepped for fractal spinning. Bottom: Single spun from the length with long color runs.
ohhhhhhhh me likey – that looks fabulous!
Such pretty yarn – I’m in awe!!