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Spinning Monkeys

Last year I bought some lovely fiber from a fiber festival. It was so soft, the kind of fiber you pick up and just want to rub and snuggle with.

Then I had a day off, and some sunshine, I pulled my wheel out onto the deck, even with a cool breeze and my jacket on it was a pleasure to sit and spin.

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The Fiber is: Screaming Wild Monkey! A special house blend of 70% super wash merino/15% Banana/!5% Seacell (impregnated with silver) 4 oz. (what ever this means!!??) Did that stop me from buying it? Oh no. The photo doesn’t show the colors, they are vibrant.

made by River’s Edge Weaving Studio at  weavingstudio.com

It was a dream to spin! I spun it up fairly quickly. After some consideration I decided to try my hand at Navajo Plying.

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I used this You Tube video from Rexenne on Navajo Plying, she has quite a personality, and the video is very through, even including slow motion.

018After plying I was amazed at the difference in the color!! Plying in the Navajo style with multicolored singles gives an entirely different color result.

Navajo plying (also called chain plying) is a way to make a three-ply yarn from only a single strand. Spinners often use this method when they have spun singles from a multicolored top and want to avoid creating “barber pole” yarn as they ply. Navajo plying preserves the color changes of the original singles, giving you a striped yarn rather than a marled one.

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Put into skeins now, I got approx. 225 yds. out of 4oz. More of the colors are coming out now.

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I am pleased with how it plied up. I like doing the Navajo plying and would do this again.

Now what to knit with this?

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Comments

  1. Loree Jackson2/18/2011

    Ooooo...I've been waiting to see how the screaming wild monkeys would come out. Beautiful!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Karen G.2/19/2011

    Very, very handsome. I hope you're making something for yourself with it so I can see!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous2/21/2011

    That is some beautiful yarn! Did it spin smoothly? I've got a wool/bamboo blend, and I've always found synthetics make my fibers a little stickier than I like. (Maybe I'm spoiled on hand combing and getting silky smooth tops?)

    ReplyDelete
  4. knittingdragonflies2/21/2011

    Yes it spun very smoothly, and was soft and silky. I had no sticky problems!
    Vicki

    ReplyDelete

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