Making more yarn for Swallowtail

I've only made small amounts of yarn at a time so far, but I can see a difference between the first little batch and the second. Maybe it would have been better to blend and spin a big batch of the fibre all at once, so that it's more consistent? Then again, those small differences are going to 'stripe' in the shawl, and maybe that'll look nice?

I'm past the 'experimental' stage with this yarn. I'm really pleased with the way it looks and knits, and I'm making it nice and consistently now. So I thought I'd bash 100g through the drum carder (about 20g at a time).


I like the colours to remain slightly separated (but the silk nicely distributed), so I'm trying to keep the white and yellow separate at the start. That allows me to put it through the drum carder 3 or 4 times and get a really thoroughly carded result without the colours being completely blended together.

It's about 3 parts white merino to one part cheesecake. Initially I mix some white and cheesecake on half the drum, with the rest of the white on the other half of the drum. I'm putting in half to one cap of silk per 20g, distributing that well across the drum. Here's a close-up of the delicious finished sliver. It looks a bit whiter in this photo than it really is. Also, the nests of carded fibre look paler than the finished yarn.


Here's progress so far. I don't have a huge amount of time to knit, but 'little and often' is working. I've also been inspired this week by this blog post.

I can't say it's completely free of mistakes, but they're not very noticeable. I'm getting much better at not making mistakes now (or at least spotting them early enough!)

I'm almost done with this 'bud' lace pattern, just a few more rows before moving on to the 'lily of the valley' border. I'm also looking forward to knitting 'nups' which involve purling 5 stitches together!


The pattern is available free from Evelyn Clark Designs. Download the pattern.