Spinning up Il de France, Demeter

A few months ago I bought some unwanted spinning fibre from a fellow spinner and I am now spinning up the first of these that I have chosen to spin.  Its the Il de France in shade Demeter that I'm going to start with first.  There were just under two full braids of this so I started work on the full braid first, splitting it down the middle as best as I could and pre-drafting before I spun as it was slightly compacted and wouldn't draft straight from the braid without a bit of work.

My dream would be if this spun up as a yarn with long colour changes that transitions from one colour to the next as smoothly as possible with as little mudding or barber poling as possible.

I spun from the same end on both singles and when it came to plying the singles it started off good but didn't last.  The second braid worked out much better and when I finished plying and compared the skeins in good light I could see that one was predominantly barber-poled with smallish sections of smooth colour and the other braid was the complete opposite.  The OCD in me told me to snip out the sections that didn't belong in each skein and swap them over.  It took me a while to do this, re-joining the yarn with Russian joins whilst also making sure the colours still flowed as correctly as I could get them to.  In total, this took me over a month to complete as there were two large braids and with all the Christmas preparations going on but its not a race, I prefer to take my time and get it right.

The finished skein of yarn above is the one that barber-poled whilst still transitioning from one colour to the next.  There is 91g/328m of double knit weight yarn. 

The second skein of yarn above is the one that came out as I wanted it to, the colours matching up and no barber-poling whilst still transitioning from one colour to the next.  There is 91g/318m of double knit weight yarn.

A side by side view of the two skeins to show the difference between them and the different results you can get, accidental or intentional, from spinning the same colour braids.

These two braids will be used together with some natural white wool to make a pretty shawl that I have been itching to make for a long time.

I've bought some spinning fibre

I've treated myself to some spinning fibre that is actually ready for spinning, not as part of an ingredients box or kit that I am making to make my own yarns spun from raw fleece more exciting.

All of these I got from a fellow spinner who was clearing out fibre that she will never find the time to spin as she has a very busy life.

The first one, the larger picture, is from Cassiopeia Yarns who seem to have ceased trading, and is 190g of  Île-de-France, a French breed of sheep and one that I have never spun before in shade Demeter, named after the Greek Goddess of corn, grain and the harvest.

The remaining four braids of fibre are all from Hilltop Cloud, who is definitely still trading, and are all the same fibre base of 50% Merino/50% Corridale from the Nordic collection.  The Nordic collection is "inspired by the lands across the North Sea and the ancient mythology of the Norse Gods and Goddesses."  Of course, being Pagan, these appealed greatly to me and I couldn't resist.  There are seven colours in the range, I now have four of those.

First up on the top row in is Earth, Earth is as connected with the Norse Gods as Asgard is.  Then we have Frigg, wife of Odin and promoter of marriage and fertility.  One the bottom row we have Idun, Goddess of Spring and Rejunvenation and then we have Sif, Goddess associated with Earth, wife of Thor and known for her golden hair.

The colours from this collection that I don't have are Storm, Odin and Asgard.