Wooly on Wednesday!

I don't always have time to post every single day on my blog, so I thought I would devote a specific post on Wednesdays to share the wooliness! It will be a sort of round up of the week's wool stuff - felting, spinning and dyeing (if any!)

So, to start with - to add to my fibre fix I treated myself to as I am going to miss Woolfest for the third year in a row, I ordered some BFL from ThreeWatersFarm on etsy. It came a couple of days ago. It's called 'First Bloom' and as well as being sooooooooooooo soft and squishy, the colours are lovely!

Here it is still in its braid

And here it is unraveled waiting to be spun!



I love the colours in it. It goes from a chocolate brown, to a rich plum colour. Then through pinks and lilacs and several shades of green. I am trying so hard not to just dive in and start spinning, but I have other stuff I need to do first!

I want to have more of a go at plying. I have done Andean plying once before, so here are the two candidates for plying practice:



Just some dark blue and varigated purple waiting to be plied!





The other thing I have been trying to get to grips with is the difference between spinning worsted and woolen yarn. A worsted yarn is smoother and more kind of 'compacted', and a woolen yarn is more airy and lofty and springy. What type of yarn you make depends on how you spin the fibres. I had a go at spinning woolen and this was the result:

This is the same fibre spun in two different ways. The one on the right is one of my earliest spinning efforts and is a worsted, chunky single. The one on the left has been spun much finer and as a woolen yarn. I think I prefer spinning woolen yarn - it comes out so soft and squishy, light and bouncy!

And just to finish off, here are all the mini skeins I have done so far:

Well, I hoped you enjoyed 'Wooly on Wednesday'. If you have any wooly things to share, leave me a comment on this post!