The Usual and the Sublime

I finished up two more yarns over the weekend. The first is what I refer to as "the usual" -- it's the default yarn I spin when I'm not thinking about it, a three-ply fingering weight. In this case I started with 4 oz. of Crown Mountain Farms BFL fiber. Klaus (the genius dyer behind CMF) very generously offered 4 oz. to ever member of the the CMF Tour de Fleece group to show off his new semisolid colorways. I chose Violet for mine, thinking that I could spin it into something for Rainbow (who tells me almost daily that purple is her favorite color). The fiber arrived looking beautiful, as always.

I split the top into thirds and did a traditional three ply, ending up with approximately 346 yards.

I love how this yarn turned out, and it reminded me how much I love spinning this kind of yarn. Also, I realized anew how beautiful Klaus's colors are -- we even started a thread on the CMF board on Ravelry to show the semisolid colorways spun up. I think that (once I do some more spinning down of the stash) several of those colorways need to come live with me.

The other skein of yarn is a lot more precious. I think I mentioned some time ago that, before he left town, Steven presented me with a bag full of small samples of various luxury fibers. I was too much of a chicken to touch them for a while, but last December, I finally got up the courage to try spinning one of them -- specifically, the Blue Moon 50% cashmere/50% tussah silk. I had two ounces of it, which seemed like a perfect amount to spin on my spindle. The colorway was not marked on the tag, but I'm fairly certain it's Oregon Red Clover Honey. I finished spinning up the singles on Friday evening:

and last night I plied them on my Lendrum (I do not much care for plying on a spindle -- it takes longer and is hard on my wrist). I ended up with approximately 285 yards of two-ply heavy laceweight.

I really wish I could add the ability to pet this yarn to this post, because this skein is soooooo soft. I've already determined that this must be some kind of lacy cowl for me, because this kind of softness just demands that it be worn around my neck!

There's one week left in the Tour de Fleece, and I'm hoping to finish up at least one more yarn. Stay tuned!