St. Patrick's Day Yarn

In honor of St. Patrick's day, I am finally finishing the "mixed greens" yarn that has been a WIP (work-in-progress) for months.  You might recall that I spun the singles (all of them spun on spindles) and wound them on to storage bobbins back in October.  Now that I have rediscovered my wheel, it's time to ply these singles together so that I can gaze affectionately upon my finished green yarn.  And there is an added boost of satisfaction since I dyed this yarn myself. 

After staring at the bobbins for a few minutes and having a fierce internal debate about my plying choices (Navajo? 2-ply? 3-ply? did I even want to contemplate a 4-ply?), I decided to create a 3-ply yarn where I would randomly drop & add strands from the different bobbins to create subtle color transitions in the final yarn. 

Plying the singles together on my wheel:

The bobbin full of the plied yarn and the bits of singles left over:

Ta-dah! The finished St. Patrick's Day yarn!  And what I have learned from this yarn?  I have learned that while I love to spin singles on spindles, I prefer my wheel over spindles for plying.  I also thought it was very cool to see how the greens blended optically in this yarn - from a distance, the yarn is a beautiful grass green color, while its components are a mossy green and emerald green.

Vital statistics: Coopworth & Blue-faced Leicester wools, 256 yards, 2.4 ounces, 20 wpi, laceweight