You'd think a giant batt of white would be boring.

And maybe it is. The Yarn Harlot is blogging about the possibility of boring her readers with all spinning all the time. IMO, not a chance. Here's the completed first quarter of my giant batt, posing without sunglasses in the bamboo bush.

Four ounces, 286 yards, Navajo/chained ply, 20-year-old Cheviot fleece raised in Southern Oregon. No, the sheep isn't 20; it was shorn and carded two decades ago.

Navajo/chained ply was chosen so I could practice the technique more; it's actually fun and fast to do, but requires more attention, dexterity, and fiddling than "standard" plying. The yarn would have turned out a light sport weight or heavy fingering with 50% more yardage (429 yards) plied with two singles.

Here's a picture in the shade so you can see more of its slightly overweight sport (or underweight DK) goodness.

One thing about spinning such old batts is that the carding oil had changed for the worse. The possibility occurred to me while flipping through a spinning book and finding a recipe for carding oil and the recommendation to spin it promptly. Hmm. So the second quarter of the Giant Battquickish trip through detergent and hot water, followed by a fabric-softened rinse. The noils and neps and snarls (oh, my!) that pestered me before are mostly not happening so far in this clean and soft quarter batt, which I'm practicing long draw on. Here's the first ounce.


The really thick parts are mercifully buried under the thinner parts! There's also more vegetation in this as it didn't have a chance to fall out during drafting or pre-drafting because I didn't do any! LOL Instead, I tore a chunk of batt off, shook and fluffed it, and started spinning.

Thanks for dropping by!