At the moment, this is on the Rose:
This is Ashland Bay's multicolor merino in the Laurel color. The photo doesn't really show the depth of the green. It's only a single at the moment, and is a bit overspun (but that will even out when I ply). It's the color that's catching me off guard, though. The base color in that roving is a deep hunter green, with strips of red and yellow. I began by splitting the roving in half and then spinning, but I found that the color was becoming a kind of generic green with no variations; the drafting process was melding the colors together a little too much.
Last night I started splitting the roving into thinner strips, and allowing the colors to group a bit more. There's still some green with every other color, and that's creating a kind of barber-pole effect here and there, but a more overall tone in those color segments. I THINK this will give me something with a bit more variation, and a bit less like green moss.
Does that make sense? And is that possibly correct? My concern here is that when the stuff is plyed back on itself I'm going to end up with that generic green I was trying to avoid instead of heathered, shifting shades of green. Thoughts?
3 comments:
This has always been a problem for me: how to get the beautiful colour effects that I see in the roving. There has to be a way and I know some spinners have it - anyone else want to share secrets?
Well I'm no expert but I have some dyed rovings which I have spun, knitted and given away so I can't show you what it turned out like!!
The roving had two main differnt colours and softer tones of each if that makes sense; so I split the roving in half, say one was shades or red and the other was shades of yellow. I spun the entire red part and then spun the entire yellow part and the plyed the both together . Is this what you meant ? I do have some more of that merino/silk left so when I return home I will spin it and show you what I did
If you spin sections of the top from the fold you will get more color separation and spots of distinct color as opposed to the more blended or muddy effect that often occurs when the colors mix together when drafted out straight from the end of the fiber prep.
This is a tip from Jill Laske herself who did a workshop for my old guild years ago. I unfortunately missed the workshop but a friend who was able to attend passed along the information to me.
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