woolly gorgeousness

This week I went for the first time to the Handweavers Studio. It's stuffed with stuff for fibre based creating - rug wool, handlooms, fleece from just about animal you can get wool from, silk, nettle yarn, weaving threads, handspun wool... I had to buy something, so I bought this.



It's handspun, dipdyed wool. Each skein is 100g and measures about 88m. I'm now wondering what to do with it. It feels quite rustic, but the colours are gorgeous. I could felt it, but my felting is always a bit experimental and I think this stuff's too beautiful to risk ruining. I want to knit something that will show off all the colour gradations. Maybe a sort of mini Clapotis? Or something similar with a simple stitch pattern and some structure to it. I tried knitting some last night. On 6mm needles I liked how the stitches looked, but it's quite stiff. On 8mm needles it's too loose. The answer is probably somewhere in between, 6.5mm or 7mm, whch means I need to buy some more needles. There's no hurry, I've got plenty more urgent things to knit, but I'm hoping musing over this will be a good distraction when I'm sick of knitting on tiny needles.