A couple of years ago a few of us bought some Harrisville fiber for spinning. I had a vision of a yoked sweater and I wanted it to be in a solid color up to the yoke and then I wanted to spin a yarn out of yellow, orange and red with really long color repeats to knit the fair isle pattern for the yoke. Well the fiber came but it was not at all what we were expecting. It must have been made up from floor sweepings because there is a lot of vegetable matter in it and the fibers are wool but all really short. It was really beyond my spinning abilities at that time but I kept it and looked at it from time to time, sure in my heart that it had character and would be something lovely someday.

This week I started pulling fiber stash out of my workroom closet in preparation for a program at the Weaver’s Guild and of course, my 3 half-pound bags of Harrisville fiber came out with everything else.

So I sat at the wheel and decided that, instead of trying to fit this beautifully dyed fiber into my little preconceived notions, I would just let it be what it is. With this in mind I spun and spun and spun and fell in love with the end result. Although heavier than I would normally like I just got more and more intrigued by the depth of color in the batts. The fiber isn’t really a roving or really a batt but sort of a combination. It’s a very, very thin batt that worked much better when I spent the time to unravel it a bit.

Here’s a photo of the fiber and the result.

The multi-colored skein-ling (because it’s only little, after all) was because I wanted to see how it would do as a 3-ply (a bit like a rope, actually) and the orange skein-ling is a 2-ply. As I was plying it, all I could think about were those great Paton’s patterns from the 50’s of coats knit out of those wonderful bouclé yarns. There might be a plan developing here.