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This roving that I got at Maryland Sheep & Wool reminds me of fire - warm like the sun or a campfire, bright and happy. I spun up a bit at the last guild meeting, which as per current practice then sat on the bobbin for almost two weeks until I freed up some time to do something with it (hey, that’s actually good given my track record!)

So, this weekend, having finished the knitting on the Magknits project (and spent a good part of the weekend working on styling, etc.) I rewarded myself by sitting down to ply up a sample skein. I’ve been dying to ever since I saw Heather’s mini-skein and swatch of her merino-tencel - she got me totally inspired to see what this colored roving would look like plied and knit. And so, I jumped in and learned to navajo-ply (using this tutorial)!

I started with a bit of black single that I had spun up for practice ages ago and has been sitting on the bobbin for god-knows-how-long, and that went pretty well, so I jumped right in on the Fire single. It’s not perfect, and I definitely had some, ahem, SNAGS along the way (I broke the thinner single two or three times, and I knotted up a couple times too). But what fun! And I’m happy with the product, over-twisted though it is. There wasn’t much active twist left in it, after having sat around - Interesting and a good learning experience. I think I would prefer to ply with active twist. That would mean that I need to have a lot more time to dedicate to spinning than I actually do right now though. In the future I’ll follow Nancy’s instructions from Spinning 201 and make a quick plying sample as I go, so I’ll have a guide to work from. I was so pleased with the fact that I actually navajo plied (and it wasn’t that hard! Though I certainly need practice) that I knit most of the baby skein into a little swatch to see how it would look. It knit up at @ 8.5 stitches/inch on US1 needles - slightly tighter than I might normally knit it, but it might be good for socks no? Fire socks! Actually, it looks a bit more like sunset than fire now, the process having muted the color a bit - Sunset socks, then. Any pattern suggestions? Our girl Nicole from the design workshop has a good one that she’s just posted - go check it out (and give her kudos while you’re there)!

Now I’m chomping at the bit to spin & ply the rest of this fun stuff!