Handspun: The project formerly known as the "Pink Smorgling", and The Night Circus

A few finished handspuns recently: a lovely, squishy, smooshy thick instant-gratification single, and my all-time Everest that took me what seems like forever. And ever.



When I opened my other Secret Smorgling box, the colour that stood out for me was pink. Everything seemed pink. Hot pink, baby pink, dusky pink... Great box for someone that hates pink! But after spinning it up, there's actually not much of it... It's rich with greens and purples, yellows and browns, a little orange even! As someone who tends to shy away from colour and prefers neutrals, it's definitely out of my comfort zone, but I do actually really like it.

It's all spindle spun, as a long gradient from colour to colour. Looking back, I could've arranged it better - put all the purple together, all the greens and yellows... The singles were basically a thread... I lost count of how many times the yarn snapped and I had to haphazardly join it back together before giving up and starting a new, lighter cop! I chain-plied, to keep the colour progressions, and ended up with 538m of a light fingering weight yarn. It took forever to count all the strands on my niddy noddy!

Because it's a sampler box, there's lots of yummy fibres within. Predominantly merino, but with the addition of tussah silk, silk noil, sparkle, corn fibre, soya, and mulberry silk.




Meanwhile, slogging through the smorgling for months had me craving something nice and quick, to see progress ASAP (which was impossible with the smorgling!) I took my March 2015 club parcel from Wildcraft - a beautiful braid of humbug Jacob with splodges of red - and spun it into a lovely thick single, which I lightly fulled. I'd never spun Jacob before - it's so springy! The yarn really puffed up after soaking, and it's so wonderfully airy! 123m of a bulky weight yarn.




Also, a quick achievement this week :') I feel like my life has peaked... I play this game far too much.



And some unexpected compliments! A while back I spun up Speckled Egg by nunoco, and saw a post on Instagram that looked vaguely familiar...



It feels odd to be counted as someone's inspiration for spinning, as I've not been spinning for very long at all... Normally it's me who ogles handspun yarns and wishes I could make something remotely similar, so it's really nice to have someone who thinks so about me :)