Wensleydale and trying to make a gradient yarn.

One of my favourite colours is purple and I just could not resist buying this fab purple Wensleydale top from Yummy Yarns UK in shade "Anemone", yeas another Anemone!.  I could have left it as it was but I decided to tone it down a little by blending it with the white Wensleydale that I got from Griffiths Mill.  I also decided that I wanted to try to make a gradient yarn as I was seeing lots of fantastic gradient yarns showcased by others spinners.

I started with the purple and separated out the colours as best as I could given that due to the staple length of the fibres, most were more than one colour.  I combed the fibre to loosen it and fluff it up a bit and then arranged the fibre into gradients and re-blended some of the fibre where necessary, as you can see in the long photo below.

I then blended some of the White Wensleydale into it and pulled the longest of the fibres off my combs, laying the shorter fibres to one side and then spun the longest fibres as a single and set the twist.  I got a skein of yarn weighing 117g and giving me 417m. 

I made this sweet small shawl, with simple beaded lace edging with the yarn, but I only used about half of so I have the other half to use on something else.

The remaining, shorter fibres I hand carded together and used to make a thicker, bulkier yarn of 78g and 41m, which I used as part of a scarf.