A New Skein of Yarn

 

I finished spinning the Dark Chrysalis fiber (from Beesybee).  This braid was dyed with one end gray, moving to all the colors at the other end, so I spun it to keep that color sequence intact.  First I divided the braid into three sections - gray, gray with some colors, and the colorful section.  The gray section I spun as it was.  It was pretty much a solid gray.  I split the gray with colors section lengthwise some to distribute the colors a bit.  The most colorful section was split lengthwise quite a bit.  I did have to draft, but I wanted the colors as intact as possible.  When the fiber was dyed, some of the color sections were shorter than the staple length of the fiber, which automatically means you're going to get blending and softening of hue as you spin it.  As I was spinning it, it reminded me of wings, but not butterfly wings.  It reminded me of dragonfly wings or fairy wings.  Then after I finsished it, I watched Carnival Row on Amazon Prime and the colors exactly match the fairy wings in the opening credits.

Once the singles were spun, I chain plied it, again in an attempt to keep the colors clear.  My finished yarn is 420 yards.  Here are all the stats:

• Beesybee Fibers in Dark Chrysalis, 50% Merino/50% Mulberry Silk
• Spun and plied on my Kromski Symphony
• Singles spun using Double Drive at 16:1 ratio, 50 wpi
• Chain plied using Scotch Tension at 16:1 ratio
• Finished yarn is 420 yards/114 grams

The way it was dyed and the way I spun it, it will work perfectly for the type of shawl that's an asymmetrical triangle knit end to end (like the original Hitchhiker). More than half of the yardage is the colorful section, so if I start knitting at the gray end, it should work for that type of shawl.  I haven't picked a pattern yet, but I'm looking.  If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them in the comments!