Making Tweed Yarn

Remember this colorway of roving that I blended together, the Midnight in the Garden one?

Well, I've been itching to try my hand at making a tweed yarn. So, I got out the ghetto hand cards (Dog slicker brushes) and using this tutorial from David and this tutorial from Abby, got to blending the Midnight in the Garden roving.

I had so much fun doing this. I made a bazillion rolags and took them with me to the folks' place this past weekend. I got about half of it spun up and guess what? I made tweed singles! This was so cool. I had been scared to blend the roving, scared of losing all that beautiful color. But I didn't.

The mohair disappeared, but all spread out it makes the rolag look iridescent like the film on a bubble. In the singles, it gives it a surprising sheen if held in the light a certain way. The base of the singles is now a pretty charcoal gray and there are little bits of orange, turquoise, lime green, pink and dark blue scattered throughout. When plied, I should have a pretty heathery charcoal tweed to show off.

It turned out so much better than I expected:

Click to enlarge and see the pretty singles!

Check out all the little bits of fluff in the rolag behind the bobbin. It was almost impossible to get a good pic of the rolag, this was the best I could do. It's amazing how in dull light it looks like steel wool. Looks much better here.

As for the "W" tank top, I finished the first side. As for the second, I had completed about half of it when I realized that I had made a huge honkin' mistake in it and had to frog back to the first wedge and that's where it stands now. I'm hoping that I can make some inroads on that this weekend on the really long drive we have to FLA.

Aren't the colors beautiful?