Fruit Salad Eyelash Novelty Yarn - HandDyed and HandSpun!
Today I finally put the Jumbo Flyer on my Ashford Traveller spinning wheel and handspun some absolutely stunning eyelash novelty yarn. First I handdyed 100% domestic 56s wool roving in golds, burgundy and oranges. Then I kettle dyed some beautiful Border Leicester locks in the same colors. I listed these items in both my eBay and my etsy stores. When everything didn't sell, I pulled one roving and the remainder of the BL locks from inventory and decided to try my hand at spinning up an eyelash novelty yarn. First, I pulled the roving into long strips ready for spinning. Then, I hand picked the border leicester locks - some of them I hand picked completely open, some of them I hand picked into intact locks. I separated each of these types of locks into a different stack. Then I spun the roving into a singles and left it on the bobbin. Next, I spun the opened BL locks into a thick and thin, lumpy, bumpy singles and left it on the bobbin. Then I put the Jumbo Flyer onto the spinning wheel and started to ply the two singles. While plying them, I added the intact BL locks at an angle and let the ends flip and curl as they were encased into the plyed yarn. Then I wound off a 10 yard skein of this yarn and had an 11 yard skein remaining, which I skeined off, too. I'm posting photos of the resulting eyelash novelty yarn, along with photos of the roving and border leicesters locks in my Fruit Salad colorway. These two skeins of yarn are listed in my etsy store. I have plenty more fibers that I will ply and encase more locks to make additional 10 yard skeins of this gorgeous eyelash novelty yarn.
Making this yarn was an absolute blast!!! I am going to do more eyelash novelty yarns in the future. These yarns would be perfect for that special touch on a hand knitted or crocheted garment - Trim on a pair of gloves, a hat band for a felted wool hat (add buttons, shells, leather, beads, etc. for additional texture and interest), a neck band on a sweater, etc.
Let me know what you think of it!
