Middle of Black

Way back in May, at the monthly meeting of the local knitting guild and their annual garage sale, I located a bag of loverly black fibre. I debated whether I should get it or not. I looked over the other tables, not really needing anything you understand, but not wanting to let a real bargain go by! I found a couple magazines (like I needed more?) but resisted getting any yarn of any kind. I have enough!

But I keep thinking about that black roving... and thought about it some more. It was nice, and I could use it, but I promised myself I would not bring anything home!

Eventually, I did the only thing I could: I went over and bought it!! It was a pound of rick black alpaca. So how could anyone resist it? I didn't. It appears no one else was really interested in it.

As soon as I got home, I had to try it!! Nice! So since then, I've been spinning alpaca with my spindle. And I just kept on going. Of course, it wanted to be spun fine, and I gladly obliged. I spin my singles on a paper quill, as you know. It took me a good long evening to spin one cop.

I plied up on skein, and it was really nice hanging here in front of me! And of course, I just had to do more.... and I kept on spinning.

Now, a pound is quite a lot, and spinning fine, it seemed to just go on and on and on. It had to end, I know, but at the moment, I was enjoying playing with the roving. It was carded and was very nice. A little VM now and then, but I didn't mind.

When I got near to the last bit in the bag, I decided to see how long it took me to ply one skein. I timed myself on the weekend -- I didn't do anything else but ply. I watched a couple of old TV shows, and a couple of Indiana Jones movies. Do you know it took me a little over 5 hours? I think it took me about that long to spin one cop as well. So that is a lot of spinning!

What would one charge for one skein? Considering all the time I spent on it, this is not very cheap yarn! Of course, the financial outlay was relatively small, but the amount of man-power that went into even one skein makes this a very expensive yarn!

Here is a pic:
Do you know that it is really very hard to get a good photo of black yarn? Who knew?

It's quite fine, and I like it. I have 518.6 gms -- that is a little over a pound. I have 6 skeins, of about 180 - 200 metres each. I'm not sure what I will do with them, but there is a lace shawl KAL that is just starting, and I may use this yarn for that. Although, I would like to know what the pattern will be before I commit to this yarn!
Maybe I should look around for another project. It will probably be lace... it's too fine for anything else ... and maybe it will have a few beads too.