Meanwhile, in Norway.

I was hoping to have pictures of my linen project done  by today, but I had the dubious pleasure of getting food poisoning on Thursday evening. I am still not myself, but I have been well enough to eat, sit upright, and spin some wool yesterday evening, and today.

So while you just have to wait some more to see the Linen outfit, you can feast your eyes on my latest wool creations :)

Remember these two lovely bundles of colour?

Let's start with the blue one, shall we? It was gifted to me by a lovely lady I met at a spinning get-together earlier in June. For people looking to get hold of the same lovely fibre, it can be bought at Alpakka Enghaugen (which is a Norwegian site) This particular colourway is called Aquarius, and is 80% merino and 20% tussah silk. Soft as kitten-fluff!

It is spun entirely by hand on a Turkish spindle, and is plied on the go. Also known as Navajo ply, it produces a 3-ply yarn. 100 grams ended up as 568 meters ready-to-knit yarn.

I wonder what you will be, yarn!
Maybe a shawl?

I just lose myself in those colours....!

The yellow/orange/pink/purple roving is bought from YummyYarns on Etsy. It is hand painted, and the fibre is 100% Corriedale.
There is an online spinning event going now, called Tour De Fleece, and I am taking part in the Norwegian group on Ravelry. The event is just for fun, where we spin during the Tour De France.

Here, I am spinning my long repeats. I have my roving in one thick bunch,
and I spin the colours as they come but being careful not to mix them too much.
(and no, I am not spinning in the nude:)

So I started my Corriedale project yesterday for the first leg of the tour. The plan is to make fractal yarn, and I have now spun my singles. These are then being spun together to form fractal 2-ply yarn. I have never tried it before, but it should be very interesting. The spinning itself is like any other spinning, the magic is in how you treat the colours, and split your roving.

Short colour repeats on the left, long ones on the right.

A mid-construction shot of the long repeats.

To put it short, you split your roving down the middle lengthwise. Then you split one of the halves into many thin lengths, and spin those as normal. You then get one single thread with short colour-repeats. The other half, you spin as is, to produce one single with long colour-repeats. Then you ply, and Voilà! Fractal yarn :)
The whole point of it, reveals itself when you knit up your yarn. It produces a lovely self-striping effect (and makes you never want to knit with plain yarns again).

These are not mine, I gracefully stole borrowed the photo from
Everything Old Crafts. Aren't they gorgeous???

If you'd like to read a bit about it, and see some more examples of fractal yarn, follow this link. Or you know, just Google it :)

That's all for now, folks!