It’s a not-very-secret secret that I am bored easily. Spinning doesn’t seem like a natural fit for a fickle crafter, and it probably isn’t. I usually get halfway into spinning one bobbin of singles before I am absolutely sick of the color. I was half done with a bobbin of Tulip’s fiber that I was adding red merino wool to intermittently for color, when I decided to try a new drafting technique.

I hold both fiber sources in my left hand, and draft from both at once.

Marled yarn is produced by holding two different colors of fiber at the same time, and drafting (pulling) from them equally. It’s really hard when the two fibers were prepared entirely differently. Tulip’s fiber is really light and fluffy roving, and the red is much more dense.

It has a nice swirl look to it as a single.

Commercially produced marled yarn is usually just two different colors plied together, which makes it look like candy cane. My singles look that way, but when I ply them the swirl will relax, and the two colors will run more parallel to each other. I think. I’ll let you know.

I'm going to ply these two together, for a holiday yarn.

I am so ready to be done with this yarn; it’s been on the bobbin for at least a week. And I had to let the red rest, since the green was done so long ago. The twist relaxes right out over time, so the two would not have been close to even if I had plied right away.