Can You Spin This? Suzanne Corriera says, “Sure Thing!”

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Oh, it has been busy around here…just when I think things are slowing down…fall is coming…more time inside…maybe bad weather will necessitate staying indoors and enjoying fibery goodness.  Well, I’m not quite there yet.  This past few days I have been having an amazing time decorating the studio with Debra Lambert from Picasso’s Moon Yarn Shop.  It now feels like Picasso’s Moon – North.  In fact, I’m going to ask Debra if it would be ok to use that name!  Yesterday we stayed out pretty much the whole day while I took her to some of my favorite places.  We filled the car…and I mean filled…If we bought one more thing, Deb was going to have to ride home on the roof.  Then, last night, I had to dig out two suitcases for her to take back that took care of almost everything she is taking home.  One thing that has to be left behind, and this is not a bad thing, is a winter coat with a fur hood.  So, when she comes up in the winter, I can just take the coat in the car to the airport for her — no schlepping around with a coat!  Studio pics to come…

Without further ado, I’m going to bring you what you came to see — Suzanne Corriera’s (of fiberartsrepublic.com) brave “Can You Spin This?” adventure.

“So I got this challenge sometime after Easter – maybe in May?  It contained:  an interesting type of egg dye, 4 oz+ of a lovely soft fiber that is either cashgora or a crimpy, soft cria alpaca, and origami birds:  CYST - SC - 1

 

This being after Easter/late springtime, and there were birds all over the place doing what birds do in the spring, along with that first picture, suggested BIRD NESTING.

I dyed the lovely fiber in the “raw” with the egg dyes: 

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You can almost see the hint of pearl shine – but that doesn’t stick around long.

Then I needed eggs for the nesting birds, so I raided my bead collection for anything round: 

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–  basically anything that was not too dark (except for a few) and that would fit through the orifice and eye of my Hansen Mini Spinner: 

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We mostly have wooden beads, but a few are very old stone beads.

The birds  would NOT fit through the orifice without a good deal of bending and squishing so I decided to place them after I finished the yarn.  This way they could also be removed for washing since I DO plan to use the yarn.CYST - SC - 5

 

I spun the fiber “from the wad” because I wanted a great deal of texture – like a bird’s nest would have.  I did not see these as the very neat barn swallows with their almost brickwork construction J.  I spun the beads into the singles as I went, not worrying about placement:

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I got them on the fiber with the assistance of a length of fishing line, used as a threader.

This is how the partly  filled bobbin looked – it eventually filled most of the bobbin: 

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I took the yarn off the bobbin, wound it into a center pull ball, and let it rest overnight.  I then plied it back onto the bobbin, and moved a few of the beads around, but not a whole lot of moving around.  I DID expect some tangles since I was plying fresh yarn with beads and slubs from a center pull ball, but SURPRISINGLY, I had none (remember this – it’s important 🙂 ).

I then skeined it and it measured out at 85 yards.  I liked the yarn already – was exactly what I had planned – and hadn’t even attached the birds!

And that’s where I should’ve been a bit more careful:

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YES, that’s a nice big fat tangle of yarn because when I was slipping it OFF the skeiner and onto the swift, I DROPPED IT! – BEFORE I’D TIED THE SKEIN with SNITCH TIES! 

 I have every intention of UNTANGLING it though :-).”

Oh, sheesh!  Haven’t we all been THERE…the triumph and then, the tragedy!  I loved the creativity of Suzanne’s approach at all stages of the project.  The egg dyes she had were supposed to give you a marbelized looking egg so it was cool to see how that translated into fiber.  I also loved that she showed us an example of how to work around adding in elements when you are dealing with small orifice.  Great stuff!  When Suzanne first wrote to me, she told me she had spun pretty much everything and I can see from her results, she wasn’t kidding me!!

One last little thing before I sign off this morning, someone and I’m not naming names yet, sent me a Can You Spin This? package which I received yesterday.  I did have fair warning that it was on its way.  The deal is, I’m not allowed to look at it until I pick something and and send it back so it’s a two way street, you see.  You know who you are!!!  I almost bought you another scary doll head yesterday…

 

4 thoughts on “Can You Spin This? Suzanne Corriera says, “Sure Thing!””

  1. I love love love reading about these spinning challenges! Thanks for sharing – the paper birds are such a cool addition to a really fun yarn!

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