Pre-drafting Colored Fiber: Part 2

Thanks to everyone who helped me destash!

Let's talk about sampling.

It's akin to yarn swatching, where a knitted swatch of a specific yarn determines if you "got gauge" or not. You knit with a specific size needle, and switch to a lower or higher needle size to get your gauge. It's no exception with colored fiber. Sure, you can tear off a hank and spin away, but are you spinning to show off all the colors, or to make a muted mixture?

Case in point: I wanted to make a 3-ply yarn with Adrian's lovely merino/silk. I tore off a small section for sampling. I didn't take into consideration that said section had equal parts olive green, purple, and white. I just wanted to sample for the ply. I should have taken into consideration the color as well, because predictably, when I spun such a short section, the colors blended into each other and I got mud. Granted, a very lovely mud, but still mud. So.

Adrian's fiber was dyed in lengths: long strips of purple and short strips of olive green. The bits of white are where the two colors were *supposed* to mix but didn't; the bits of "mud" are where they did. So if you look at your fiber that's been dyed in lengths and see where colors run into each other, that's what you'll get in the end if you don't plan ahead.

You want to minimize mud. You can do a few things:
◊ Tear off longer sections. Ideally, in between the long strips of color and not in the muddy areas. I'm talking 3-6 foot sections. Of course, you'll have to pre-draft all of it, but at least it won't be muddy.
◊ Try navajo-plying instead of your standard two-ply. That way, you can control the amount of color mixing.

A little adjustment in how I prepared my fiber, and I ended up with nice sections of color in my singles. On to plying!

Linky that doesn't currently work, for reason #bX-v2vqfh, but you should bookmark it anyway, so that when it works you can go see! This site has been on my list of feeds for a while because of the eclectic collection of photography: Thrilling Wonder.