Oh my… I’m a little behind schedule! I do apologize for this. Long story short, I got really sick at the end of August and then got busy with preparations for Knit City and am finally… albeit slowly… getting caught up on all the things that got dropped.
So without further ado, here’s the post about August’s club!
When we first moved to our home almost five years ago, I was so excited. Excited to see what the garden would show us as each new season came and went. We have two beautiful Magnolia trees in our backyard. One blooms in early spring, the other, at the beginning of summer. This is one of the flowers from our summer blooming magnolia tree. It’s very fragrant and I do love to spin outside next to this tree and catch the scent as the breeze drifts through our yard.
This month, I created gradient batts for club. Basic club was 100% Targhee, while Luxury Club was our newest blend of 80% Targhee, 10% Bamboo and 10% Tussah Silk (or TBS, as we affectionately call it behind the scenes!). As it’s such a small content of bamboo, the white streaking isn’t nearly as noticeable as it is in a blend like Panda, which has a 30% bamboo content! In the photo below, basic club is on top and luxury on the bottom.
I decided that since the bases are so similar, it would be fun to spin these two batts in two different ways. I took the TBS batt and pulled it apart, so that it followed the gradient. This is what it looked like when I was done. Just one big long rope of fibre!
I then chain plyed this braid and ended up with this yarn! The heathering from the bamboo is very subtle, as is the sheen from the silk, but it still retains all the bounce of Targhee, which is so very lovely!
For the other batt, I decided to spin it across the top of the batt, working my way from one colour to the next to the next and then back again. This is definitely a more challenging way to spin a batt, as it’s rather large and can be harder to control. I then created this lovely centre pull ball and plied from this.
The result was a rather mixed up, barberpoled skein, but I really like it!
For me, it’s interesting to see these final skeins next to each other and see how the exact same colours can look so different, depending on how you spin them!
I will hopefully have September club up for you tomorrow and then back to our regular schedule of posting on the last day of the month for October! Thank you all for your patience and until next time, happy spinning! ~ Katrina
