Spinning Cupcake

My knitting buddy, Tena, took a trip recently to see her mom in Manitoba. While there they took a road trip into Ontario. During that trip they stopped off at Elgi's Sheep Farm Ltd., a small business started in 1952 when the Swedish couple, Robert and Margarit Egli, emigrated to Ontario. Elgi's carries all sorts of woolly goodies from moccasins to sheepskins to woolen socks, shirts and blankets, to finally yarn and roving. Tena was kind enough to purchase 100 grams of a Corriedale roving in the colour Cupcake and gave it to me. (She picked this colour because she knows there is a certain amount of pink knitting happening in my life due to the grand daughters.)

This roving (or roping as they called it) looks just like a cupcake topping of pink buttercream frosting

So on Spinning Wednesday I prepared the roving, took out my lace flyer (different sized flyers spin different weight yarns) and spun for a couple of hours. My goal was to improve to the point where I can count of being able to spin lighter weight yarns. Here's a photo montage of my spinning lately.

Moving from super chunky bulk yarn to fingering weight

Above is the wildly inconsistent Honey and Fig merino on the right and the now dried and wound into a cake Periwinkle perendale on the left. You can see how bulky that right ball is compared to the lighter weight yarn on the left. When I measured I find the Periwinkle is fingering weight.

Spun Cupcake corriedale on the left and another view of the Periwinkle perendale on the right

Now compare the Cupcake corriedale to the Periwinkle perendale; it is finer still, although not yet plied. Progress is being made. (Also note how consistent the Cupcake coloured yarn is on the spool! Oh, I think I'm bragging now.) Spinning with Cupcake went well even though I only managed to get 50 of the 100 grams spun. It is my hope that it will be chain plied and create another light fingering weight yarn, but this will have to wait until the entire roving is spun. Wish me luck with the new-to-me plying technique. I will need it.

Tena, thanks so much for this thoughtful gift. You can be sure Cupcake will be used to create a warm and woolly accessory for one the the girls.

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