One of my biggest challenge with fiber arts is that I never have enough of the pretty stuff.

My stash is largely four ounces of this, and four onces of that, because I fall in love with a given braid of colors at a fiber show, and somehow it is always last of that colorway. Or maybe I know myself well enough to realize my attention span probably won’t last past 4 ounces! Or because the fibers and colors I love tend to be on the pricier side, and a single braid is all I can afford!

Currently I only spin supported, and tend to produce a lace weight yarn. Four ounces of lace weight is basically good for a lace shawl, which for me is a slow, painful process to knit.

It’s even harder to effectively use one ounce of luxury punis! I typically spin and ply them with themselves, leaving me with these tiny little skeins or balls of lace yarn laying around. I’ve decided for my next project to spin the punis I got at MDSW, and this time, I’m going to try combo spinning.

Combo spinning is a stash busting technique where you pick different complementary fibers and spin them together. There’s also combo drafting where you hold two different fibers together while you’re drafting, but I’m barely dexterous enough for one handful of fiber at a time!

You don’t even worry about the different fiber content between the two. I found a small amount of 80/20 merino-silk blend in a small enough size it also needed combo spinning to help it be all it could be, and decided to combine the two. Combo spinning is a great chance to play with different colors, but I opted to keep it simple. It’s hard to screw up with white!

I also need to practice staging fiber photos. My first attempt at a photo for my combo spinning project turned out like this.

I laid out the punis I had in the package, then proceeded to divide the merino-silk blend into roughly halves repeatedly until I had roughly the same number of “chunks” of white as I did punis. I didn’t worry about making them all the exact same. My plan is to spin the two fibers alternately, so I wrapped each punis carefully in a merino “coat” so they would stay together in their protective plastic bag. I will also spin a second singles of just merino – since that is what I have. I thought about buying some merino-silk blend for the second singles yarn, but I’m really trying to avoid adding to the stash in the name of busting the stash!

I am hoping to end up with a mostly white yarn flecked with the orange from the Peach Gummie punis. Although as I am spinning it, it’s looking more “salmon” than actual orange. This is the most I’ve ever though before hand about the yarn I am trying to create, so stay tuned to see how it goes!

Oh and I am almost finished with the Jamie Rose scarf. I just need to weave in the ends and block it, which means I might finish it in time for Christmas! (I hate weaving in ends.) Fun fibery times at Casa de Peacock!