One of the more common things for people to buy without due consideration, right? I want to make this into a sweater, oh yes I do.

I’m going to try to make a sport weight yarn (or thereabouts). I have made a couple of sweaters based on Jacqueline Cieslak’s Embody patterns and think this would make a splendid crop cardigan.

I kept my head enough to know that one does not leap with both feet into a pound plus of Malabrigo Nube without some practice. I also bought some combed top for a test, and I spun a few ounces into two and three plies for a comparison, so scientific. That giant hank at the top is two-ply and it is going to be a mermaid’s hair someday.

One is that I needed this practice! Another is that it is easy for me to overspin this wool. Another is that the three-ply yarn (bottom) is much more balanced than the two-ply (top). I’ll plan on making the former. I like that the extra ply causes the colors to blend more. I’m hoping to avoid strong stripes in this sweater.

With uncharacteristic thoroughness, I even knitted test sample. I used no. 2 needles with the three-ply and ended up with a swatch that matches the pattern’s gauge quite well. Lucky.

I divided all five tops into some very slim “pencils” for spinning. I did this for two reasons: one is because I hope this will blend the colors better; two is that it will be easier to separate the matted parts from thinner top than it would be from a big handful of the stuff.

This is a good example of how matted the wool can be, in places, especially where the dye is heavy. I love this wool because it really is as soft as a cloud, and the colors are extraordinary. You just have to draft out, or pull out, the thick stuff.

After a couple of months of early morning spinning, I ended up with these beauties.

I am running out of bobbins, so I will wind these five plied yarns into skeins, and then finish off the rest of the plying.

There is plenty of yarn here for a sweater. I wonder what the striping situation will be. The skeins are fairly uniform, but there are sections of color, for sure. The colors are quite grayed in this photo . . .

But I did knit it and I am calling it a swatch, so it counts. It looks like my gauge should be fine. I would not mind if this sweater were a bit bigger than my usual sweaters because this yarn is rather substantial and spongy - the great benefit of handspun yarn!

and I think that this new friend will indeed be a bit bigger than the other sweaters I have made with this pattern. Oh. I am adapting Jacqueline Cieslak’s “Deren” pattern from her book Embody.