Last December I received the last installment in a fibre club subscription. BFL (Blue-faced Leicester) and Angora blend.. divine, right? Well, I didn’t think so. The colours were so not… well, me. For 2 months I was considering trying to swap or sell it off to a more appreciative recipient. But I was also desperate to try BFL, as I’d not spun it before. So I sucked it up and decided I would spin it, and then see if it should be sold as handspun or knit and be given as a gift.
So I whipped out my Christmas present spindle (which is an awesome Spindolyn) and started spinning. Apparantly the BLF/Angora was desperate to be lace, so I spun on.
I soon received a lovely gift of some silk hankies (the kind to be spun) in beautiful firey tones. So I started spinning those too.
Then it hit me. Why not ply the silk to the BFL/Angora? They were very complimentary in tone and would look stunning as a fibre combination.
As you can see, the end result is awesome! My only problem is that I didn’t have enough silk to ply with ALL of the BFL/Angora blend.
Well, I plied it onto itself, didn’t I? Figured that a top down triangular shawl could be sta
rted with the BFL/Angora and then move into the silk plied yarn.
While the individual yarns have their own distinct looks, they look awesome together.
The big lesson really, is to try new things. Step outside your colour comfort zone and see what happens!
It did turn out lovely and the shawl will be gorgeous!