MA Sheep and Wool

Last week, I was too lazy to take pictures--this week, I've taken pictures but am too lazy to write. I can't wait to see how I'm lazy next week!

Anyway, after two other fiber festivals plus the sale at Webs in the last month, I thought I was pretty much yarned out by the time we went to the Massachusetts festival. It was somewhat bigger than the CT festival, but for some reason nothing was really speaking to me except the Angora bunnies. But I was happy to wander around with my SnB buddies and window shop (stall shop?). Just as I was congratulating myself on my restraint, I found some roving. I told myself it was too orange and nearly headed towards the car before coming back to buy it. But look--it's the very same colors as one of my current projects--which I never thought was too orange.

Since I noticed this, and realized that I'm going to have about half of the skein (Schaefer's Andrea, in Elena Piscopia) when I'm done with my lacy Argosy (currently in unphotogenic blob form), I've been thinking about plying them together, if the roving (100% merino, from the Sheep Shed) still looks like the Andrea when it's spun into a single. Since the Andrea is already a 2-ply, I think I need to spin the single in the same direction as the Andreas was plied, so I'm spinning both of them in the opposite direction when I ply them together? I have a vague recollection of seeing a blog entry a while back about plying handspun with commercial yarn, so maybe I'll try to track that down.

A little lace scarf from the same vendor also spoke to me, so I bought 4 ounces of the roving it was made from: merino and tencel in a colorway which might be called lavender tweed. But that one barely made it in the front door before I started spinning it up (I did stop for dinner, but just barely)! I think I have about 80 yards, which seems like a lot less than the scarf must have taken (even though I started with the same weight of roving). I think I may be spinning more tightly than I need to and squishing too much fiber into too little space. But it's very soft, so maybe I'm not? Or maybe scarves take less yarn than I think? I read somewhere that handspun tends to work on larger needles than a similar weight commercial yarn would, so maybe that's it.