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"Dragonfly Dance" is spun from superwash merino wool that I got from Ursula's Alcove at the Ohio Ren Faire. Somehow, I managed to home in on the only bags of wool fluff there, that were, I kid you not, in the back of a tent at the far corner of the faire. They were on a shelf a foot above my head, behind a sign, if I recall correctly. (I'm a terror at flea markets, too. I know I'm homing in on something, I just usually don't know what.) Anyway, the bags were full of totally soft, fluffy finger-candy, and I bought a bunch of them because the price was fantastic. Now, the nice lady I bought them from did mention something about how the price was so good because she buys out ends from a place that does the washing on the dyed wool, and the explanation did involve something about wash machines and scraping out, but I honestly didn't pay too much attention because, hey, cheap superwash merino? Like that even happens, right?
Well, she warned me. *laugh* I was a little surprised when I opened the bag to spin some (instead of just pawing at the pretty finger-candy), and realized that it was not really so much a roving. Actually, it wasn't so much a batt, or any other form of prepared wool I was used to. It was more sort of wool blops with occasional weird tendril like bits. I am guessing that I was supposed to try to prepare this somehow. But, um, well, I didn't. I decided it was close enough to a batt, and it's not like my spinning is so perfect that you can tell the difference between when I have an optimal fiber source and when I don't. And it turns out that superwash merino really, really wants to be yarn. It's dying to be yarn. It practically leaps, yarnlike, from your fingers to the bobbin. I think it only bothers passing through the orifice so you don't freak out out about having possessed fleece about the house. It's a good idea to pick out the tendril-like bits and work them up separately, though -- they go all weird when they're spun in with the less well organized fiber.
The yarn was spun originally onto two skeins, roughly half the roving on each. I wasn't as worried about getting the amounts totally even, because I have another bag of the same color and I can always just make another skein of.... of something. The two bobbins were then plied together, and a novelty tag yarn was put in during the ply. I was trying to get the tag yarn wrapped around just one of the yarns in the ply, which *mostly* worked. Unfortunately, my wheel has "built in lazy kates" (read: dowel rods) that are on either side of the wheel, so I don't get a really good shot at controlling both strands in a ply with one hand-- I keep getting one side or the other of yarn stuck around a dowel rod, a foot, a knee or occasionally, furniture. If you have a mental image of me completely mummified in yarn while trying to ply, you're close but it's not quite that bad. Special, I tell you.
In the end, I think this is another yarn that turned out quite well. It's pretty. The name comes from how the little tags look like dragonflies dancing over a marsh -- they're like the little iridescent flashes you see while the dragonflies bop around.
Stats: 9-10 WPI, 2 ply w/ novelty yarn, 100yds
