Back on the 11th of March I went along to a Wingham Woolwork sampling day near Didcot being organised by the Kennet Valley Guild of Spinners, Weavers, and Dyers. The idea is that you bring your spinning wheel and your lunch, pay £6 entrance fee and then can try out as many of their fibres as you would like during the day. It was great fun!

I find it quite hard to know how the colours are going to change from the fibre, to the yarn, to the knitted piece, so my plan for the day was to spin a little chunk of a variety of their blends of merino, and merino and silk and see how the colours blended together.

Here is the finished tube, with a little bit of the fibre next to the knitted fabric it became:

Some of them were fairly predictable, but others were surprising. The more different colours in a blend the more difficult I found it to predict how it would come out. A very useful exercise, and I am very keen now to have a go with blending more colours myself rather than just buying pre-selected blends. I do love colour!

Of course no day of this kind would be complete without a bit of stash enhancement. I bought two bags of Rainbow Merino fibre, this one is actually two shades of navy although they are quite close together:

And this one is a bit less subtle 🙂

And some Rainbow Merino Silk too:

I bought a bit over 100g of each, the measurement is a bit vague because I was weighing it rather than them. It should hopefully be enough for a pair of socks in each colour. I am looking forward to seeing whether I can make socks that are soft but also will wear reasonably well.