Another spinning project finished on the Hansen miniSpinner. The fibre is superwash merino, the colourway is Muddy Water, although in my experience muddy water is greenish brown, not this blue. It was pretty batt which made pretty yarn in turn, but it was not pleasant to spin.
The batt was full of second cuts, clumps, and nepps. I did my best to pick that shit out, but sometimes I let some in because I just wanted to get it done and out of my stash. The fibre itself was so scratchy it started to hurt my fingers to spin after a while. I am glad it's finished and the yarn has turned out decent enough to knit with.
The yarn is 2-ply and is more even than the red colourway I spun first, but still not the most even yarn I have produced. I spun the singles with the lace flyer, and used a makeshift lazy kate made from a cardboard box and two dowels to hold the bobbins for plying.
For plying I switched to standard flyer, and the whole batt fit onto it with room to spare. I am so pleased about that. 113 g of fingering weight yarn without any knots! Love! I love this machine. As far as I'm concerned, this investment has already paid itself off.
Before I started on the blue batt, I plied a project that had been languishing for a couple of years. This colourway is Harlequin on Jacob wool. I divided the top into 6 strips and finished spinning three of them on a spindle. Since plying on a spindle is a chore, it got put aside.
Now the first skein is plied from a plying ball, and I've started on spinning the next 3 singles. I don't have kate yet that fits three bobbins, but I'll rig something up until the lazy kate maker whose model I want is producing them again. Or I'll wind another plying ball...