Double Marl Thursday

Hi Knitters,
I hope you are all doing well this week. We have finally gotten a couple days of rain around here and things are looking a little bit greener. That is a happy thing. The brown grass and dying greenery everywhere you turn has been a little depressing this summer. Hopefully the rain will continue off and on for awhile.

I am sharing some details about a hank of handspun yarn I recently finished. I was reading the Knitty.com blog quite a long time ago where Jillian Moreno wrote about a spinning technique called Double Marl. You can read about it by clicking right here. I immediately wanted to try this technique with some of the more colorful roving I had because it distributes the color so nicely.

I also like it because it is incredibly fast and a good way to whip up a bulkier weight yarn. I don't want to only spin fingering weight yarn. I want a good mix of colors, yarn weights, fibers, gradients, striping, etc. Why else would you spin? It's all about variety, creation, trying new techniques, learning more about wool and various fibers, experimenting and mostly having fun!

Here is the unbraided roving I picked up in.... Kentucky! You saw that coming. It is Falkland wool, 4oz.  It is from Dyeabolical Yarns and is in the ever-popular Themyscira colorway. This roving is so beautiful and vibrant.

Basically, you separate the roving into thin pinky size strips. You can kind of see I started pulling the skinny strands apart above. I didn't do any pre-drafting at all. Then you take two of the thin strips of roving and spin them together to get your singles.

I kind of think of it almost as a sort of 4-ply in the end because you are taking two strands to make the singles and then plying the two singles together to get the finished yarn. I know that isn't exactly true because you don't have 4 singles you are plying together but the way the colors mix together you are getting that from the four pieces of roving spun together.

Isn't it gorgeous? The colors just pop out at you.

In the end I got 150 yards of a bulky weight yarn. I am definitely going to make Molly's Mittens with this skein of Themiscyra. Click here to see the pattern for Molly's Mittens. This is the perfect yarn to make a super cute pair of mittens for the winter ahead. When we go skating outside in the bitter cold Wisconsin winter season I'll have on my watermelon socks and my Themyscira mittens and....

My Thorpe hat for which I spun the yarn using the same double marl technique last winter. The color mix and distribution in the knit fabric is so effective. And look how great those tassels turned out with the double marl yarn. They are barber pole goodness.

I'll share my finished Molly's Mittens when they are done. This mitten pattern is so fast and simple. I can't even count the number of times I've used this pattern, over and over again.

I best get back to work now. I'll return soon with much more on the knitting front.
best, susie