Bird’s Nest

I finished up this skein of handspun sock yarn last weekend. It is made from Southdown (one of the down breeds I was so excited to discover last year) prepared as top. The colorway is Bird’s Nest and it is dyed by Sheepspot.

I knew I wanted the colors to barberpole, so I basically did a fractal spin. This is what the fiber looked like when I got it:

I pulled it apart into thirds (roughly). I spun the first third as it was. I stripped the second third into two long pieces (so the color runs were shorter). I stripped the last third into lots of smaller pieces and arranged them so that the bright green bits were evenly distributed. Here they are lined up on top of the piano by my spinning wheel:

I spun all the singles on one bobbin and surprised myself by using the 12.5:1 whorl instead of my usual 14:1 whorl. I found that the draft length was a little too short for me to draft evenly on the 14:1. So I went to a slower whorl and a shorter draft to get the same amount of twist. It seems to have worked fine. I spun the singles a little on the loose side (to preserve softness) and made up for it in the ply (which I did at 16:1).

My finished yarn is 422 yards (I’m so happy with this number!) and 93 grams. My first skein of Southdown sock yarn was 352 yards and 94 grams, so the new skein is finer. Hooray!