So Here's Where We're At

First, a little catch up...

Sweet basket of spun singles.

The singles, paired up for plying.  If you notice, there are numbers on each.  That was the order I spun them.  The first five ended up too thin I thought, so for the second five I tried to spin them just a hair thicker.  I'm still not sure I did the right thing, but we are not going to dwell on that.

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Well...it’s plied...and steamed. I’m not sure I’m happy with it 😐. I sample and sample and think I’ve got it set...and then I spin the big amount...and it doesn’t match the sample. The samples were all wet finished and this is just steamed. Maybe that’s the issue. Maybe it’s late and I’m just tired and cranky. I’m going to go to bed and look at it with fresh eyes in the morning. #handspinning #woes

A post shared by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady) on Feb 19, 2019 at 8:47pm PST

I'm sure they're fine.  I will re-swatch to make sure I'm still getting the gauge I thought I was getting and all will be fine.  All will be fine...all will be fine...all will be fine...

...until I hit the next problem.  The pattern I've picked (so far...all will be fine, all will be fine...) has a beautiful patterned yoke.  The designer's version was a black sweater with two grays transitioning into white.  It was like a custom Muffin and Pepperpot sweater!

I knew I was going to be tight on the gray/white portion of the project, so I did some sampling with PPPP rather than chance wasting any of Mrs. P.  I had an idea of how little black I'd need to add in to get my two grays, but when I started actually blending I was shocked.

From left to right the ratios are 1 part white to 1 part black, 2-1, 3-1, 4-1, 5-1 and 10-1.  Yeah...  My hopes that where I was tight on having enough Mrs. Pepperpot, Muffin would make up the difference were dashed.  There will be very little Muffin in the grays.

I ended up choosing the 2-1 and 10-1 for my two grays.  The trick now was how to pull that off with the small amount of white I have.  Sit down...think...what are my options...  

I did the thing I always do in these situations...and called kbdoolin ;-D.  I'm surprised she still answers the phone when she sees my number.  We discussed the design, the amounts of dark gray versus the light gray and white and how much I'd actually need of each...and in the end decided not to chance running short.  

The seven ounces of Mrs. P. might be enough, but the mathematical odds were really not in my favor.  Yarn Chicken is fun in certain situations, but once Mrs. P. is gone, it's gone, and in the middle of the Iknitarod you don't want to have to rip it all out and pick a different design using less yardage.

The solution was actually quite simple...and sweet.  

Biscuit to the rescue!

I'd been feeling bad about not including him anyway and I'd bet Mrs. Pepperpot would have wanted him in there as well.  Biscuit and Muffin blended side by side into yarn?  We've sure seen that before :-).

January 2018

The bundle of white on the right will be my white and it will be straight Mrs. Pepperpot.  I'm going to spin that first and check my yardage.  If I'm not sure I have enough then I'll pull some more from the middle pile.  If I think I'm good than I'll blend some Biscuit in with the middle bundle and add little bits of Muffin to start working on my two grays.

So...that's where we're at :-).