As soon as I saw the name of this fiber I just had to have it: “Just Ducky!” It reminded me of my sister’s love of rubber ducks, so I was excited to get this colorway of yellow, white, black, brown, red, green and shades of colors in between. This was my first time spinning superwash merino, and I have to say that this was the easiest thing I’ve ever spun. It took me less than 8 hours in one weekend to spin and ply this lovely yarn.
This yarn also represents my first attempt at fractal spinning, which is a technique in color theory. Basically, you take the fiber and split it in half length-wise, and then spin the two halves at different color repeat length intervals. The first half you spin in one long color repeat, and then the second half you keep the repeats in the same order, but you split it in half again and then spin in chunks. This allows the singles when 2-plied to line up in a way that allows for a dynamic color explosion! In some places the colors will line up perfectly, and then in other places it will vary, creating an interesting color palette that’s just hard to describe in words.

Mallard

I have to say that this skein of yarn is my favorite one that I’ve spun to-date. It’s also my most evenly spun yarn, with the singles only having about 10 inches worth of difference, which is quite remarkable! This is also the softest skein of wool I’ve ever touched that didn’t have silk or alpaca or cashmere in it! The generous 424 yards that I have to play with now will become a lovely tam and hand-warmer set, hopefully to be knit this Fall.

Whenever I see this yarn, I can’t help but think “quack, quack!”