A while ago (I’m scared to look at how long ago), I won a beautiful 4 oz braid from Created by Elsie B in an instagram giveaway. The colorway is called Niagara Falls and I believe it was a OOAK (one of a kind). I’d been admiring her braids for so long, but my spinning had never really taken off. I’ll save that story for another post. Long story short, I’m now spinning the braid and I thought I’d share how I planned out this project and where I’m currently at. The major points to know in order to be caught up is:
- This is my first “real” spin. In other words, it’s the first project that I’m not just messing around and learning how to spin. It’s a thought out project where I plan to use the finished yarn.
- I am a beginner and have no clue what I’m doing.
- I spin for 15 minutes at a time, 3 days per week to limit injuries.
I decided I wanted to fractal spin this braid. I didn’t want to chain ply it, since I was more curious to see how barber poling would look. There is a lot of dark sections in the braid, so I’m hoping the bright white and teal will help make it pop in some areas. This will be a learning experience and we’ll see.
First, I laid out the braid and split it lengthwise in half. The finished yarn will be a 2 ply. I then put one of the halves back into the bag to be dealt with later. For the first half, I broke it into sections based on where the color changes. I’m essentially using each unique color as a nest and spinning those one at a time. I’m going to spin them in the order of the braid. So – for half #1, I’m just spinning the length of the braid as it came to me.
So far, I’ve spun the white, bright blue and am about halfway through the teal. This means I still have a lot to go, but I’m slowly making progress.
My plan for the second half is to split it lengthwise again and spin half 1 then half 2. This is the main idea of how fractals work, but you can keep splitting the 2nd halves into thinner pieces so you get more blended sections. I’m not sure that I’m split it too many times because of all of the brown in the braid anyway. I do want to see parts of it with the white and bright blues.
I’ll keep you all up to date in the On the WIP Side posts! Let me know what you think or if you have any advice.