Skip to content

Hidden layers

Art Batt Surprises

Last weekend I finished up my skein of bright yellow yarn from the art batt by Barn2Yarn. AwesomeE commented last time I posted about this that the batt looked “beachy somehow” and while updating my projects, I looked up the name of the batt: “Beach Sunset”… looks like Barn2Yarn succeeded in conveying their inspiration!

Anyway, I’m pretty pleased with it, and I succeeded in fitting the entire 100g on my cross-arm spindle.

Four images of the same bright yellow skein of yarn: on a niddy noddy, in a twisted skein, an open skein and in a turtle right off the spindle. The yellow is mixed with flashes of white and brown.

It’s bright, cheerful, and slightly uneven with the occasional surprise of a curly lock or some sparkly spun into it.

I don’t want to lose too much momentum, so I decided to grab another of my Barn2Yarn art batts. This one had a few more surprises for me though!

Three images of an art batt in bright pinks and purples with bits of chartreuse yellow – rolled up, partially unrolled, and laid out flat.

So far so good, right? Unrolling the bright pink and purple batt just reveals a bit more of the locks visible on the outside.

But when I flipped it over… the back revealed a deeper purple with lots of white. You can actually see a hint of this in the bottom right photo above where it’s peeking through the fold. Anyway, I wasn’t sure I wanted to spin it like this – I love the bright pink and don’t want to tone it down too much. Nor do I want to end up with a barber pole of pink and white throughout the yarn.

But batts are made of layers. So I decided to split the top layers from the bottom, peeling away the thick purple and white layer from the pink top. I’ll just have two smaller skeins instead of one great big one.

Three images of an art batt showing first how the back/inside is purple and white in contrast to the front/outside of bright pink and purple. The third largest image shows the batt split in half horizontally to pull away the purple/white back from the pink/purple front, revealing a hidden layer of bright yellow.

And this was the final surprise – look at all that yellow which was hiding away! I’ll keep that with the pink – its still nice and bright and may just create an orange look to parts of the yarn. Also, it will help tie this batt back to the yellow one as well.

This is part of the fun of an art batt – the construction method of layers fibers on top of each other can create surprises for the spinner. It’s also why I choose braids or batts with a very limited color palette over art batts for the projects in which I want a high degree of control. But the goal with these purchases was to “go with the fiber” as it were. So I’m enjoying the challenge of deciding how to handle each surprise.

Non-Profit of the day – International Rescue Committee

The International Rescue Committee “responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises and helps people whose lives and livelihoods are shattered by conflict and disaster to survive, recover and gain control of their future.” Right now, people already struggling in war zones and disaster areas are increasingly facing the threat of Covid-19 on top of everything else. Yemen is particularly at risk, with 2/3rds of the population at risk of starvation, and limited supplies making it to hospitals. You can learn more about the humanitarian challenges on the IRC website.

Tags: