On one of the boards on the http://ravelry.com site a vote was held about what should comprise a challenge for the next month and overwhelmingly people wanted to regain the lost skill of spinning thick. My spinning teacher back in the dark days told us to celebrate the rough, uneven and knobbly spinning which were our first efforts at yarn because, she said, we would never be able to do it like that again; and she was so right.
Anyway, a lot of spinners, it seems, aspire to spin lace weight as though it is the Holy Grail of spinning and then find that they can't do it any other way - so we are all nominating the weight we want to spin and nothing will be counted under Double Knit (the equivalent of the old 8-ply). As I normally spin to DK I have nominated 'Bulky' as my goal because I want to replicate the first sweater I spun and knitted. I spun it from a grey fleece and left the grease in it. It was my sailing jumper and I loved it although I have no idea what happened to it.
Anyway, I have a kilo of a solid colour called Wine-tasting which is a rich burgundy colour from Blue Faced Leister fibre which would be perfect but needs to be spun thick, so I have started the challenge and so far I think that I am spinning the nominated chunky yarn. It is not hard - just a short forward draw so that the fibres do not have time to draw out and thin before the twist catches them. The challenge is going to be consistency over two bobbins so fingers crossed - but I should be able to spin thick enough for the sweater.
The colourway I am using is called Meteor Shower and I am almost weeping that I feel that it deserves better than to be spun thick and probably turned into a beanie, since there will not be enough to knit very much. Nevertheless it is good to know that I can actually still spin thick. My greatest challenge would be to have to spin lace.
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