Blending project update

That blending board spree ended up using almost all of my leftover commercially dyed Corriedale top from the level 4 and 5, Master Spinner programs.  I have an 1880's chest of drawers which I use for fibre and equipment storage and the coloured bits of roving were taking up the bottom drawer.   My aim in doing this was to use up the rovings, free up some space and have a bit of a break from spinning the project fleece.  These are just a few of the blending board rolags that I made.  The orange is a bit misleading as it is much more orange than in actuality.   It was my least favourite of all the colour combinations, although I'd hoped I'd used up all that Chili Pepper Red and I think it was Cheese Cake yellow, in a way which didn't end up looking like clown hair.   I was trying for something autumnal and pumpkiny.

I spun it all using the traditional longdraw.   There are 5 different colour combinations there and while I thought my favourite would be the blue - lower left, I ended up liking it the least.  However the orange turned out to be one of my favourites because it really did remind me of pumpkins.   There are 65g - 75 g of worsted weight yarn for each colour, so enough for mittens at least, or maybe a hat.  

more accurate colour of the orange blend

 I spun and plied more white project fleece yarn.   I did a rough check on yards per weight of the yarn. I counted the wraps on the niddy noddy, did the math and then weighed the skein.  I divided the yardage into the weight and got 1.9 y per gram.  By then weighing the rest of the skeins and multiplying by 1.9, I got a rough estimate of 1398 yards.   While by no means truly accurate, I have enough spun to start looking at sweater patterns.   Hmmmm, leave it white or dye it?

I started with the Raspberry/blue rolags.  They had the most yardage but I should have probably started with the smaller yardage lots.   I will have leftovers from these mitts.  Not enough for a decent project and if I'd made larger mittens, I could have used them as a present for someone with bigger hands than mine.  But since I have small hands and a habit of losing mittens, maybe I shouldn't worry too much.  Of course I usually make my pairs of mittens of similar colours, so I can mix and match.  I wonder if odd mittens are a trend yet?

I'm knitting these on brand new bamboo needles.   The first time I tried bamboo needles, I really liked how light they were but I wasn't sure I liked the feel of them.  However, I received a couple of pair free with a yarn purchase one time and since they were the only knitting needles I had of those sizes, I ended up using them several times.  The first time, they were a bit rough but by the third project, they had been sanded incredibly smooth, by the fibre and were getting a glossy finish, I presume the oils in my hands.  They ended up being lovely to work with.  Hopefully these will turn out the same.  Otherwise, the local store has just stocked Knit Picks wooden needles and they are really nice to work with.  I may pick up a pair just so I can put a second project on the needles, stuff it in to go project bag and drag it along with me.