Green to blue

I purchased 4 oz each of these green and blue rovings at the Shenandoah Fiber Festival last September. The colors are called "Leprechaun Suit" and "Wizard's Spell." The blend is Romney-Mohair-Alpaca, but I don't know what percentage of each. I bought them with the idea of creating one long gradient yarn moving from green to blue.

That means... hand cards! I wanted to use the same technique I learned in Beth Smith's "Handcarding the Color Wheel" class back in October, 2017. After doing some math, I decided to make seven rolags in each of the eleven color combinations:

By the way, I don't think I've shown you the clever hand card cover my mom made me for Christmas. I requested it specially, and she used the batik fabrics I love. This is ever so much better than the plastic grocery bag I was using before:

I started this project back in April with the solid green rolags. After spinning a couple of them, I stopped. The fiber didn't draft well. It still felt tangled. It had a lot of VM (vegetable matter) that got in the way of a smooth draft. The resulting yarn was lumpier and bumpier than I like. So I just stopped.

After a while, I decided to try combing it. The spinning was a little better, but not enough to warrant the extra time it would take to blend and comb all this roving (plus the fiber loss that results from combing). So I went back to Plan A and decided to embrace what would surely be a rustic yarn.

As I've worked with these two rovings, one thing is clear: the green roving is far rougher than the blue roving is. I don't know if that's because the blue has a higher percentage of alpaca, or if the Romney sheep that contributed its wool is just softer. I'll never know. But as I move from green to blue, the spinning is a little easier.

When I'm done with these 8 oz (or so) of singles, I plan to chain ply. This should result in a 3-ply (ish) yarn that preserves the pure, long, color shift. What I'll do with it then is unclear. But sometimes it's just fun to make something because you can.