Playing with the Blending Hackle

I've been busy creating two new fibres for spinning today on the Blending Hackle.

I've taken the fibres that I dyed with the carrot top, added a few more bits, including some from the goody bag I bought recently, blended them together and I'm over the moon with the results.

You might be wondering why I chose to put a bit of black in with the all the other colours.  Well, if you look at a couple of the other small samples you will notice that some of the them have black and grey in them and I felt that it needed a bit more to help break up the colour and add contrast.

I halved all the fibres as best as I could so that I could make two large nests of blended fibre, one for each ply of the finished yarn.  The photo on the hackle top right show how it was built up in layers, I then pulled this off by hand and then put it back on the hackle for another go.  I done this a couple of times as this helps to blend the fibres and break up large chunks as in the photo bottom left.  The photo bottom right shows what it looked like when I pulled it off through the diz.  I done this process twice as I was making two nests of fibre for spinning.

The photos below show the finished fibre wound up into large nests as best as I could and they are ready for spinning.  Looks very interesting and its very soft.

I then turned my attention to my second idea of a yarn taking white cotton, bright pink Bamboo, soft pink Soy Silk, Raspberry Angelina and pale pink hemp and blending them as best as I could on the blending hackle.  Due to the short nature of the fibres I really struggled with this one, it wouldn't diz off in one continual strip so I had to pull off large chunks by hand and stack them on top of each other in the photo below.  I don't like pink but then I wont be making anything for me so thats OK.

My third fibre was some Peppermint coloured Merino that I've had sitting in my fibre stash for a while but although its a pretty colour, I wanted to add a little bit of p'zaz to it. I found a few little samples from a Goodie Bag I'd purchased and a bit of silver iris angelina.  I love this one its so delicate and sparkly!