Bull by the Horns -- Homogeneous Colour Blending

Well, after all sorts of wringng of hands and procrastinating I decided it was time to take the bull by the horns and begin some of my homework. I started with the assignment in colour blending to create a homogeneous yarn. It probably took me about four hours from start to having two bobbins of singles. Given my level of organisation, a good chunk of that was spent in finding things and gathering everything in one place. :-)

I started with two colours of a dyed Corriedale carded roving. The colours are not completely accurate here, but they were a kind of burnt orange and a blue/green teal. Garish, eh? Or so I thought. Just wait, it surprised me too, at the end of the day.

I took about the amount of roving of each that I figured I needed, leaving enough for the second assignment which will come later. I then divided and placed some of each colour on a card and then carded it. I quickly learned I had placed too much roving on the card as great billowing clouds of fibre puffed up. That is often my problem with carding, I have discovered. I tend to put too much fibre on the card initially. Less is more, as they say. So the second time I did much less. And less was still more, so I cut it down again. I planned on following the method Julia showed us, of creating 4 batts of blended fibre, dividing each of those into 4 and taking 1/4 from each and blending them together etc.


However, I found that I had too much fibre to work strictly in batts of four. It would have meant loading way too much on the card, so I ended up doing eight batts, This pictures shows four batts, but I confess I am cheating here. There are two stuck together in each of what looks like one. But you get the idea at least. Now, you can either blame my photography for the fact that the four batts look kind of fuzzy. ORRRR..... and this is the option I prefer, you can convince yourself they are fuzzy looking because they are so lofty and well carded. Since they are destined for woollen spinning. I prefer the latter understanidng. :-)

Anyway, I divided and carded again, mixing up sections of each batt in order to try and make them as varied as possible, but I could not strictly do the four divided by four thing since there was too much fibre. Finally I made it all into about 10 rolags. They seemed fairly well blended, but, second guessing myself as I tend to do, I started to wonder if they should be better blended, more unform and homogeneous than they were. I could still see some of the individual colours.

In her notes Julia referenced an article "Carding Beautiful Blends" by Lorraine Smith in 'Knitty,Spring 07. www.knitty.com/Issuespring07/KSblendingfibers.html Taking a cue from her method, I decided to redo things a bit. So I laid out the rolags side by side, as Lorraine did with her batts, re-drafting them all to the same, long length, and then took a bit from the end of each, carded that again, and made a new rolag. I ended up with, I believe, ten new better blended rolags. "Full speed ahead" I said to myself. " I am spinning this or I could spend days carding it over and over to try and get it perfect". These are the final rolags I spun. You can still see the two colours a bit, but I kind of like it, and decided to go with them.

And here is a photography of one of the bobbins of singles. As you can see, there is still a little colour differentiation. I am unclear as to just how much they are supposed to be "one uniform colour', but I like the tweedy yarn I ended up with, although in reality the colour is a much more dark chocolatey brown than shows here. But, it is nice and woollen in look -- lofty and all that. I am letting the two bobbins of singles rest until tomorrow when I will ply them and see what I end up with. Keep you posted (if you are still awake.)