Jillian’s Spinning: Saranac Yarn – The Part Where It All Goes Wrong

I had a long drive ahead of me, from Michigan to Florida. I thought it would be perfect to get lots of knitting on my Saranac shawl done. I at least could do the first lace bit and still get to work on the other 16 projects I brought. Really, I brought, 2 kniting, 1 spinning, 2 crochet and 3 embroidery – 8 projects. It’s a long drive and I like to flit.

First, I admired my Saranac yarn:

I love the colors of my Saranac yarn.

I love working on fiber projects in the car, no where else is the light so perfect. It’s my favorite place to seam a sweater, because of the light and because I am trapped.

I didn’t get the yardage I wanted out of my fiber. That set off low-intensity alarm bells, but I have plenty of other fiber that I can spin that works with this. My yarn felt kind of heavy for lacy knitting too. Did you hear those alarm bells get louder? I did and just kept on, sure it would work out.

Now looking at the picture of the yarn up there I can see that there is too much ply twist. It’s my standard, a little over twisted for roundness and springiness that I like. To make matters worse with the over ply twist – I did my plying while I was watching the Scandal season ender. I must have been treadling fast and not noticed.

The yarn just did not work out for lace.

Too much twist

At least not the look I was going for. What looks like a bit too much twist in the yarn cake, looks like energy unleashed in knitting. To me it looks coiled and ready to spring apart like a crazy exploding clockwork. The YOs aren’t very open and just this little bit weighs too much. I wanted light and soft, relaxed looking and feeling. This swatch looks like it would rather kick your butt instead of cozy-ing up to you.

Crap.

First I’m going to try to fix this yarn, then I’ll probably respin. I’ll do a bit each week so we can all learn from my not right yarn. But, I promise it won’t be the only thing I talk about each week!

Have you had a yarn fail lately?