It all started with this wonderful fibre you can see in the photo below. It’s blended Corriedale – called “Trutti Frutti.”  It’s eight different colours that follow a rainbow sequence – with the exception of the yellow, which is really a “grellow” and what truly makes the difference in my final project. Just watch the way it behaves as it blends with other colours.I picked up these eight (100g each) bundles of joy at Fibres West in March 2023 from West Coast Colour and Carding. I couldn’t choose a colour, so I purchased one of each. I was so smitten with the possibilities for these colours, I picked up another set (eight @ 100g) when I returned the following day.

As a way of assessing the potential these colours and fibre offer, I spun up some two-ply mini-skeins. Placed in a rainbow sequence, and using two rolags for each mini-skein, I made sixteen different colours. Red + Red; Red + Orange; Orange + Orange; Orange + Yellow and so forth. Here it is below, all set-up to make 16 yarn samples. Here’s an up close look at the effect of the marled yarns. Marled yarns are yarns that use a different colour – when the contrast of colours is strong, they are also called barber pole yarn. I decided I liked the yarn that I was making with my spindles and my wheel, so I proceeded to make 50 gram amounts of each of the 16 colours.

There it is in progress. The mini skeins helped me keep track of my spinning progress. Which was a very good thing. This quickly turned from being spinning/plying colour management explorations, to an actual project. A friend was getting married and a photo she sent to me of her son playing with his cars, gave me the idea for the gift.

His love of rainbows and loose adherence to them in the activity, appealed to me. I wanted to explore this in weaving. I lined up a photo of the sixteen yarn samples and an idea started to form. But first, the yarn needed to be made.

While I made the yarn, sometimes on my wheel, and mostly on my support spindles, I got into a relaxed state of making the yarn. I worked to enjoy each part of the spinning process and developed a daily practice pf spinning and reflecting on life and feeling incredibly grateful to have such a task ahead of me.

Next post I’ll write up about the weaving process.