This is a fiber story from roving to toy. It is also a love story dedicated to my dear daughter. It all starts last summer when I received some some bright pink and purple roving for my birthday. She instantly claimed it as her own and I was happy to oblige.
The fiber was Malabrigo Nube, colorway Baya Electrica. You can find it online for about $15 at places like Yarn.com or Jimmybeanswool.com. Pretty decent price for 4oz of 100% Merino, and the colors – priceless. The fiber was a bit felted in places though which was expected based on the reviews. So doing a bit of extra prep up front seemed like a good plan to make the spinning much more pleasant.
I’ve always wanted to spin a gradient yarn, so this would be the perfect fiber to try fauxlags. I watched this video and this video to learn how to make fauxlags and began to separate the colors. I took over the entire kitchen table for a few hours to make this happen! Once they were all rolled up, I used this old document box lid to organize them by color so that they were all ready to spin up.
I definitely need more practice making fauxlags. Some spun up easily, while others were too loose and pulled apart in clumps. Overall they were really fun to spin though. The progress went by quickly because everything was bite sized. I could easily see how far along I was and it was hard not do “just one more”.
After all the singles were spun, I used chain-ply to make a 3-ply yarn and maintain the gradient effect. It was so fun seeing the resulting yarn come to life!
I believe I ended up with about 100 yards of worsted weight yarn, here’s a link to my ravelry spinning project page. Perfect for making a little pink elephant for my daughter. I have knit this elephant pattern called Elija by Ysolda Teague for my son years ago.
She loves it and the yarn is holding up really well. I was a bit worried that the handspun would wear out quickly, but it’s been nearly 6 months now and it looks as good as new! The amount of love and care that went into making the yarn and knitting the toy was well worth it.
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