Shiny!

Today I have some handspun yarn pr0n for you. It was finished about a week ago, but the whole time change has messed with my ability to get any natural light until the weekend, so it had to wait a while for its photo shoot.

This yarn started life as a 60% merino/40% bamboo blend dyed by Kristin at All Spun Up (my favorite fiber pusher).

Because of the shine of the bamboo and the way it took up the dye differently, leaving that beautiful silvery effect, I knew I wanted to spin this into a laceweight yarn. I discovered that while it seems to take as long to spin the singles as it does for, say, a three-ply sock yarn, it takes forever to ply. I spent several days' worth of spinning sessions just plying. The last day, I was at my wheel for a total of more than four hours! In the end it was worth it, though, because I got a gorgeously shiny yarn with the nice tight twist I like.

Starting with 4.2 ounces of fiber, I yielded approximately 625 yards of two-ply laceweight (about 27 wpi). I was a bit worried about how the finished yarn would look, because the singles had some noticeable runs of a burnt orange shade that I wasn't too fond of, but everything blended together in the plying process. The finished yarn reminds me of chocolate-covered berries.

This yarn clearly wants to be knit into something lacy that will show off its shine to full effect. I'm thinking perhaps Waves of Grain from the most recent Knitty; I have some silver-lined beads that I think would be a perfect match.