Spinning a Japanese Maple

So, a while ago, I received this fiber & spindle from Butterfly Girl Designs:


Japanese Maple - 70% merino, 20% bamboo, 10% nylon firestar

It reminded me of a Japanese Maple in the fall. Much like this:

(BTW, I love Japanese Maple Trees)

I used the pictured drop spindle to turn it into this:



And then, the poor fiber sat resting all this time, because I wasn't sure what to do with it! I wasn't 100% happy with how it turned out, because the colors (at least to me) seemed muddy, even though I loved the fiber colorway. I wanted more of the gold to pop.

However, I know that sometimes how the fiber looks prepared is a bit different from how it might spin up...or even how it might knit up. So, I wasn't ready to trash the project.

I debated plying it against itself or maybe spinning something to match or maybe a commercial yarn. In perusing through my stash, I remembered that I had this:


Jagger 100% Wool Cone -- 5000 yards

Certainly, I could spare a few hundred yards for this project? LOL. The coloration was close enough to the gold bamboo in the batt, so I opted to give it a go. So, I prepped up the Kiwi wheel for plying.

And at first, I wasn't too happy with how it looked, except for certain spots. But I opted to keep trying. I *knew* that the gold would bring out the colors and to trust myself on my knowledge of color theory. My plying wasn't the greatest, but a little help from Jasmin and I got this....

I am definitely in love. The gold really made all of the colors pop and tied everything together. I currently have 495 yards of laceweight/fingering weight yarn. Plus, I still have some of the batt left over. I think I might be able to squeeze another 50-60 yards out.

And think I've found the *perfect pattern* to go with the yarn. I'm not wholly sure how well this yarn will look in this pattern. So I will try a pattern swatch. Now, I just have to figure out how to knit up this pattern (coz after reading it, my head is spinning!)