Wrap and roll....

After I finished spinning the wrap and roll (following article in spinoff spring 08) yarn in white, I decided that I'd like some colour with it, so I overdyed it with cochenille - in the same dye bath as the veggies for the OLG workshop. it wasn't mordanted with tannin, so the colour was more purple and less grey! I also added several skeins of pure mulberry silk that I had; two were "chunkier", about needle size 3 maybe, but a small skein was very fine and originally intended for embroidery on a silk scarf (I hope there'll be enough left over for that:)). all are 2ply and fairly evenly spun.

the article in the spinoff shows a project done with the wrap and roll yarn - a "scribble lace" scarf. I think scribble lace is a brain child of Debbie New, at least she shows the process and several projects in her book "unexpected knitting". the basic design is done in garter stitch, mostly in the finer yarn on large needles (I use 7 mm!), which gives an extremely stretchy and open fabric. every now and then a row is knitted in the far thicker wrap and roll yarn to the effect that the yarn looks a bit like a fat caterpillar snaking through the fabric:)) because it is always just one row (apart from start and end of my scarf, where I knitted/will knit

several rows in wrap and roll to make the ends sturdier - and to show off the yarn with added fine silk yarn plus beads) you have to put the stitches back to the left needle after knitting the w-and-r yarn and continue with the fine silk. it knits up pretty quickly, but I think the pic would be clearer if I had stretched and blocked it out a bit!

I do like the idea of this yarn, even though it takes up quite a lot of yarn for wrapping! but it is quite versatile when used as decoration in a project made from a different main yarn! I think I'll be testing and trying the technique a bit more, with lumpier wrap yarn, with different colours, beads and added yarns to ply maybe.... something to do during those wet irish summer days?