New Challenge

The last couple of years, I've been a member of the local weaving and spinning guild. This year, they're doing challenges, and I've signed up to do the spinning one. The basic idea is that everyone gets  an identical 150g (or a multiple thereof) package of fibers, and has to turn it into a finished object. It's going to be really neat to see what different final products come from different people, as I've seen happen in similar challenges for quilters.
Part of the challenge, when we were initially discussing this idea, was to have a chance maybe to work with fibers you hadn't before, and experiment with how they behaved. I've tried quite a range of different things, though, and as I've been thinking about this, I'm planning to challenge myself in a couple other ways.
- Fine spinning. The cria is probably the thinnest I've done, so I want to spin laceweight for this also. Plus I only asked for 1 package, so spinning fine will get me more yards of yarn to play with.
- Shaded dyeing. I saw a really neat dye technique where you roll it all the yarn up in a ball and dye it like that so the color will shade from dark at one end to light at the other - or from one shade to another if you redo it starting from the opposite end with a different color.
- Lace design. I haven't done a lot of lace knitting, but I am liking it, and I'm challenging myself to design a lace shawl that will use this shaded yarn. It would end up with the center one color and the edges shading to another, which I think would be really pretty.

So I've started working on the lace design, even though I haven't even gotten the fiber yet. It's tougher than I thought, probably because I can almost picture what I want, but it's the figuring out how to convert from brain to product that's getting me. If all goes well, it will have buds and blossoms on it, shaded light rose to deep cerise/magenta, and I'm going to call it 'Crimson and Clover'. I was listening to the song last week, and it does fit what I want to do. And I want a title, because the finished challenge projects are going to be displayed at the MVTM - the textile museum in Almonte - which will be pretty cool.