Boho Core Spun Art Yarn

 I look back on my spinning adventure and smile realizing how far I have come in such a short amount of time!

 When I first began to figure out making yarn, I started out with a drop spindle, then graduated to a wheel and made lace weight to fingering weight yarn with my own dyed and blended batch. But I needed to graduate to something more... Art yarn.

 My itty bitty flyer could barely take worsted weight, and i'd barely make atleast a 150 yards 2 plied! So making any kind of thick art yarn on the flyer I had, I would maybe make 50 yards if I was lucky!

My amazing husband saw my struggle (the struggle is real with us spinners too, people.) and blessed me as an early anniversary gift a Super Flyer! When I received it in the mail (I ordered from an amazing lady on Etsy! I have to give a shout out to her shop, she was an absolute BLESSING! Check her out - https://www.etsy.com/shop/traditionsfiberarts ) I right away set it up... well my husband set it up, I watched. ;)

 The hardest thing about creating art yarn is to literally lose all control and just go with it However the wool wants to be spun and to not force anything. This was an amazing thing for me to learn, because I was so used to being extremely specific when I spun my yarn to make it as even as possible, that when I first began to spin my first yarn, I got discouraged because I was fighting the art itself!

 It was also an amazing lesson in my life. Before I got married, I was care free and responsible yes, but I allowed life to throw things my way and I shrugged it off and went with it, I was a boho girl not only in dress but in personality! After I got married, I felt a huge sense of responsibility as a wife and one day a future mother. I slowly began to train myself to have more control and that is good but I wasn't balanced, I began to teach myself to be more in control of what I could control and in that I lost that sense of freedom and shrugging certain things to the side and the result was stress!

My husband would tell me, "Elisa! Be you! Be care free and the lively gal you once were! This isn't you!". Boy, was he right! I loved that he would say, "I am your husband, allow me to carry the burden... delight me with your joy and creative personality. That is all I want.", with those words I began to return back to the gal I used to be!

Spinning my yarn was a great example of letting go, I began to just enjoy being artsy with it! My first time using my Super Flyer I taught myself how to core spin... I absolutely loved the colors I blended and how it came out, I didn't have a heart to list it onto my shop... I kept it for myself! Tee-hee!

When I first carded, dyed and blended my wool, I got a beautiful Autumn like look that in my head I thought would look like a Fall/outdoorsy look, but boy was I wrong! Again, when I lost control and just went with how the wool wanted to be spun, my creative instincts turned on and I just went crazy with it!

As I was core spinning I realized that what I thought would be an "Autumn" look, came out looking like a bohemian kind of yarn! I was thoroughly surprised and very pleased! As I said before, I went with it! I went to my yarn stash that was leftover from when I spun the very first time and were either very uneven or didn't have the look I liked. I kept them because I knew I wanted to incorporate them when I made art yarn...

Core spun art yarn with auto wrapped recycled handspun yarn and coiled "bee hives" made with merino wine colored wool

After figuring out how the yarn was going to end up looking like, I decided to go online and figure out a way how to make coiled bee hives. I found some incredible tutorials that I had to try and it worked splendidly, my favorite video is called: Corespinning cloud coils by Wool Wench (I have absolutely no idea why I can't upload the video straight on here from youtube. So just go to youtube and look it up!) It was so easy to try it her way that I had to share by photo (and then maybe you can see it broken down instead of pausing if that is how you soak it in to learn!)

 I didn't have my husband at that time to help take pictures, so I decided to take photos of each step I took to make this gorgeous beehive look!

beginning auto wrap in the middle of my core spinning

I didn't want to auto wrap the whole time I was core spinning. So as not too waste my recycled yarn: When I was ready to auto wrap, I tucked my recycled alongside my core and wrapped for a good few inches so it would not slip out.

When I was ready to drop my recycled yarn, I simply seperated it from my core and dropped it close to the orifice and kept spinning! When I was ready to take off auto wrap, I simply united the recycled yarn with my core for a couple inches to secure it and cut off.

Once I was ready to begin my beehive coils (I call it beehive), I took already made long stripped shaped roving (or cigar shape as Wool Wench calls it heehee) and placed it under my core...

Before I added the roving, I made sure to have a good length of my wool unwrapped as I need this to secure my long strip of roving...

Forgive the over sharpness of this photo. I have no idea how this happened.

I placed the roving underneath the core and began to spin (clock wise, of course!).

After I wrapped it in place I stopped pedaling and began to twist the roving away from me...

As you see in the photo above. I am twisting the roving "away" from me and once the twist is at the tightness I prefer, I slowly begin to pedal...

At the same time I am pedaling (SLOWLY), I am also twisting and wrapping the coil around my core...

At the end of the coiled roving, I push it up as much as I can to give it a beehive look. To secure it, I simply took what I am core spinning with and begin to restart core spinning right onto the end of the coil and proceeded my core spinning!

This is how it looks when secured!

Finished result of my core spun boho art yarn with recycled handspun yarn auto wrapped within! Beautiful!!!

I wish all of the beehives were much more consistent (like what you see in the video that Wool Wench uploaded) but I will admit... some of the inconsistent shapes added a lot of fun and charm and amazing texture.

Click on photo to be redirected to this listing: Boho Core Spun Art Yarn