I've Been Spoiled

After super hot and humid temperatures all last week, this weekend it has felt decidedly autumnal. It's been raining pretty much nonstop since early yesterday morning, and it's been much cooler -- I actually had to break out some handknit socks last night! So it feels right to start spinning some fiber that looks like fall foliage.

This is oatmeal BFL from Southern Cross Fibre; the colorway is called Allegory and reminds me a lot of fall leaves just starting to change. I've only just started to spin the first little bundle of fiber (there are four total).

I'm spinning this as fine as I can and plan to chain-ply for sock yarn. I always struggle with my yardage when I spin BFL (in the sense that it's always much lower than what I get with other fibers), so I'm trying to spin my singles as fine as possible.

I'm sure you're wondering how I've been spoiled, so I won't keep you in suspense any longer (and it's not that the weather has finally been seasonal). I can't say that this was entirely a surprise, because I knew it was coming, but the real surprise was the magnitude. Last week, I got a text from my friend Colleen asking if she could send me some spinning fiber, as she's planning to move soon and needs to downsize a bit. Of course I'm always happy to get free fiber, so I said yes, expecting a braid or two. Instead, what arrived in a large box yesterday was this beautiful bounty:

There's quite an assortment in here -- some fiber from the now-defunct Crown Mountain Farms, some Abstract Fiber, some Yarn Hollow, and some new-to-me dyers. This should keep me busy for a quite a while! Colleen was exceptionally generous, and though I offered to spin up some of this for her and send her the yarn, she simply asked that I consider selling some of what I spin up and donating that money to charity. So you may see some of this available to you in yarn form before too long!