“You spun? You haven’t spun in a long time.” Then he stopped short with, “Wait–spun? Or plied?”
Busted.
Maybe a dozen years ago I bought the cashmere, I bought it all: cones of 90% undyed brown cashmere 10% wool, single-ply, spun very fine for the garment industry.
But when it arrived from China the importer found a moth in the box. Or maybe several. She debated shipping it back but emailed me, an old customer, saying it would be all the same to her if she simply unloaded it on me at her cost.
Fifteen bucks a pound plus shipping.
!?! YES please!!!
Granted, brown cashmere is cheaper to begin with because you have a far wider range of dyeing options with white. Brown makes for earth tones. I could live with that.
It came from the Southeast with a slight whiff of mildew. A really hot scour of the finished yarns helped greatly and it was all the more incentive to boil it in a dyebath (but that and the lack of superwashing made me hesitate later to use it for the grandbabies.)
I plied pounds and pounds of that thin thread on my wheel into a soft knitting yarn and I knitted and spun and dyed some more until I actually, honestly kinda got (forgive me) bored with it. (I hear you and you and you and you saying hey let ME be bored now!)
I knew all these years later I still had a little somewhere, but two days ago I stumbled across not scraps’ worth but three two-pound cones.
I had this laceweight offwhite silk on a Colourmart cone that had just been sitting there…
I was a little afraid to touch that brown for fear of finding that for having been left alone in their ziplocs for so long they were finally bug-damaged, never actually having had any problems before despite their beginnings, but no, there was no sign. The yarn was fine.
The bigger bobbin was 227 yards and 120g when I got done and when I finish I’ll have more than that again.
It was a distraction from the project at hand, but I felt like when inspiration strikes after a dozen years’ wanting, grab it while it’s there.
Do I dye it or do I leave it?
And I… There were originally fifteen pounds… I think I have another of those cashmere cones in that other closet, too, most of one pound, at least. Might even be two like that. I’d have to open those big awkward boxes that are above my head and I haven’t quite yet looked to confirm.