After taking the balls of top to my spinning group on Monday and throwing ideas around some more, I decided to divide each ball into 6 approximately equal pieces, and spin them in order by value, one after another. I'm in the middle of Navajo plying the first skein--NOT my favorite way to ply, but the easiest way of keeping colors distinct.
The sample I knit up tells me I don't have quite enough yarn to do the front and back of a vest, so I will probably buy more top to complete the back--most likely just one color for the back. I'm going to do vertical strips for the vest front, one skein per strip, in a simple lace pattern, probably English Mesh Lace, always my favorite, or maybe each strip in a different pattern. Each strip will knit on to the previous one so there's no sewing up (something I dislike more than Navajo plying :) I steamed one portion of top to see if it would restore the crimp. It didn't. Nor did washing the sample skein make any difference in its thickness, elasticity, or loftiness. Steaming the top DID make it harder to draft, so I won't be steaming any other pieces. This top is delightfully easy to spin from the tip, almost as easy as hand combed top, so I don't want to mess with that. No mitered squares this time, but those are fun to do, so maybe the next project.... BTW, when I have problems using a link in email, I copy and paste it into the browser. When it still doesn't work, I truncate it back to the home page address. None of those worked with the Art Yarns site. Holly To stop mail temporarily mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: set nomail To restore send: set mail
