If you were a type or brand of yarn, which would you be? Are you a classic pure wool? Is there extra tension but a bit of bounce in you because of your high twist? Would you be more like a high-maintenance, strictly hand-wash fluffy angora or a ‘bring it on’ acrylic, bravely heading into the world of possible baby-sick laundering disasters knowing that you will always come out bright and unharmed?
Since learning to spin I have become much more aware of different types of fibres and their properties and how that changes the way in which I spin them. I have fibres that I LOVE and fibres that I will never be working with again but I've never really given much thought to whether any of them represent me in any way.
And, in fact, I still haven't given it much though because I immediately thought of one particular skein of yarn in my stash and the decision was made. It's a handspun, spun by my own fair hand, not the best example of my work but somehow just very much 'me'.
This yarn is a total mongrel, a quick sift through my Etsy receipts tells me that the batts I it was spun from contained 8 different types of fibres, some of them with multiple colours.
I think that the sheer amount of stuff in this yarn was a big reason why I immediately chose it. Like most people I am not one thing, I am a mish mash of complementary and clashing qualities that all come together to make me. The manner of spinning was also a big influence too. Essentially I just sat down at mt wheel with my batts and let them become whatever they became, no plan in mind. What I ended up with was think and thin, dull then bright, twisty then soft and strong then delicate. This means that the weight is difficult to classify and the WPI is just an average, it refuses to be pigeonholed. A bit like a lot of people I'm sure, but definitely like me. I like to look a bit different every day,wearing different styles of clothes and wearing my hair differently. I'm scruffy one day, neat the next, some days I like rainbows and bright colours other days I'm all about black and ripped jeans and studded belts. There's always eyeliner though, just like my yarn with it's 2nd ply of shiny black thread.
Like me, my yarn isn't sure what it wants to be when it grows up. The perfect pattern hasn't shown up yet but it's not stressing. I like to take each day as it comes and see where I end up, there's no master plan, I'm just going about being me and trying my best in all that I do. Maybe I'll never knit this yarn, maybe it never wants to become anything more than what it is....and I'll be completely down with that.
