Yep, I’m still working on perfecting my merino spinning skills to develop enough confidence to start spinning for the Spin-Off sweater. I’ve split yard-long lengths of roving into thin strips,  pre-draft  these thin strips well and then spin with moderate twist.  The singles are spun on a 9:1 ratio whorl and plied on a 7 1/2:1 ratio whorl.

I found that the long fibers of the tussah silk in this mixed merino/silk roving helped make it much easier to  spin than a pure merino roving. Although I initially liked the mix of colors in pre-spun fiber once spun, I started finding that the red didn’t show up much in the singles. So after finishing a bobbin of singles I decided to ply the silk/merino singles with another bobbin of red merino singles to create a barber pole type yarn. The swatch in the top left corner was made from this barber pole yarn and the swatch below it was made from pure merino yarn.