Control

I've just finished spinning a HilltopCloud BFL Gradient, gifted to me as part of a secret Santa. I started it on a day when I was battling the Dog, and needed something to immerse myself in.
I am not a huge fan of BFL, not because I find it difficult to work with, it's just a bit smelly, especially when it warms up from handling.

At the time, I had no idea why I was drawn to it, but on reflection, it's not difficult to see why I was.

It was about control.

The top, once shaken out a bit, opened up into 4 distinct pieces, which I then split and weighed, making sure I had around 50g x 2.

Once I was happy with the balance, I predrafted (left on the pic) a whole strip out and started spinning.
After finishing the two bobbins of gradient, I just knew I wasn't going to be happy leaving them as a 2ply, so I spun up some delicious Polwarth/Tencel in a steely~blue colour to add in, to add shine and help make the yarn more robust.

The Polwarth/tencel went a very long way, as I only had about 35g of it, and still had a little left after plying the two 50g bobbins of BFL. 

Once I finished plying it, all that was left of the BFL gradient was about 6 inches of one single.

I really enjoyed this project, it was a real test of my spinning with regard to evenness and constistency... or to put it another way, my control over the fibres and my wheel.

This project has helped me realise that I can sometimes default to controlling behaviour in certain situations, which in itself is a little worrying, haha, but not so bad when directed at creative endeavours, especially when it works out like this has.

I think all of us have a little Control Freak somewhere inside of us though?