RebekkaLeigh: Corespun Crazyness!

It's just dawned on me that i've not been the best blogger this month. I've been quite busy actually, with exams, college work and of course setting up my little folksy shop.

My spinning wheel has been going non stop for the last couple of days, I've been very good! However sometimes there's just not enough hours in the day :-)

I've spun a few new yarns recently and was able to try a new spinning technique core spinning! This was mainly for the reason of trying to find a method that would secure some of my spin in's into my yarns.

Firstly I hand spun a beautiful cherry blossom inspired yarn, with turquoise and brown merino, purple and fushia coloured mohair locks, and green nubby fiber (a present from a friend). I also spun in some bronze lurex thread on the 'tree trunk' part of the yarn....Its beautiful, it's definatley one of my most favourite yarns. To top it off I also spun in some handmade Organza flowers that I made, after finding an amazing tutorial on http://teaandwhimsy.blogspot.com/2009/05/organza-flowers.html on how to make them.

Here's a Photo of Cherry Blossom.

But then disaster struck, my poor flowers could not stand the stress and strain of being wound onto my niddynoddy and having the twist set, so they started to become loose.

It's at this point that i realise that it's always a good thing to be reminded that you will never get somethings right first time, and although the flowers are coming out of the yarn I still think its fabulous. I can always knit the yarn first and then stitch in the flowers to the finished project.

So anyway I decided to try my hand at core-spinning. Now, I have always fancied having a go at this but was put off due to the over-twist that normally ends up in my yarn, but on this instance I thought why not? so after scouring you-tube for a quick reminder and tutorial on how to corespin, the best tutorial I found was http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLvvW8x9mlg Which is done by Velma of Colorbomb Creations, I was then ready to rock and roll! I decided to use fluorescent pink, black merino and silver Angelina, with black organza flowers in my core-spun attempt

Here's a photo of what I've called Black Magic

For a first try there was a slight bit of overspin and I only managed to spin 25 yards of yarn, but not only is it really airy and lovely to touch, my 9 flowers are now firmly spun into the yarn with no chance of escaping..Whoop! Whoop!

I'm not quite sure about corespinning on a regular basis as I kind of feel as though I've cheated at spinning. I missed feeling the fiber between both hands and making descisions on what to do whilst spinning it. But It was nice to try something new.

However, I think that I should at least have another go before I totally rule it out of my spinning techniques. I think I may begin a love-hate relationship with this method of spinning.

Here's another photo...