#thank you again dangerphd! it was such a cute package y'all

[cjgladback]

[ID: Three photos of a purple to pink to orange gradient yarn sitting on weathered wood planks in direct sunlight. In the first, the yarn is a single, unplied twist wrapped into a ball around a disc shaped core (the cardboard of an empty masking tape roll).

In the second, it is a loosely tied hank of three-ply yarn; it has been chain-plied, so neighboring segments of yarn are wrapped together, preserving the color change with minimal variegation.

The third photo features the hank laid with the opposite side up next to a shallow dark-orange mug with a spindle resting in it at a 40 degree angle. The spindle was 3D printed horizontally with a rainbow colored filament, from a spot of orange on one side through red, purple, blue, and to green on the other side. It is about nine and a half inches or twenty-four and a half centimeters long. The spindle is a supported Russian style, its base an inverted teardrop shape before a waist and the shaft of the spindle that's widest just above the waist and tapers down to as thin a spike at the top as possible. End ID]

I spun yarn! And plied it! This spindle and spinnable fluff were an incredibly generous gift from @dangerphd amid excess from 3D printing experiments! I'd previously spun one skein on a drop spindle in high school -- and I loved it for the process and made a chunky shawl of the Stephen West Spectra scarf design with it, but boy was it an uncontrolled thick and thin mess. Whether due to actually carrying over that learning more than a decade later, or the lighter (supported) spindle, or marginally more patience with age, this went way better!

I was definitely struggling with repeated breaks at the start and compromised my intention to go as thin as possible, but by the end I felt like I got decent control and consistency in my single's weight. And seeing how much less fragile those once-broken sock-weight singles are once plied should help me keep up the confidence with future fiber to really push for the thinner threads that I want to use. I had just learned about chain plying and wanted to try it when Danger sent the gradient fluff, so it wasn't a problem when there were several spots that I was sure would need plying for strength--and overall it's still less chunky than the thicker parts of the single I had made before! And much more even than I expected.

I haven't been brave and tried fulling it yet, just barely dampened and hung with a minor weight (a thick flannel shirt on its hanger) while drying. (It smells like wool once wet, though less strongly than some and I don't actually know its fiber contents.) But it's already pretty well behaved. It's a bit less than 20 feet of yarn, and I have to get into and through a different project right now, but I'll find something that lets me use it soon enough.