You know those times when your heart flutters and you get extremely excited and nervous at the same time? That happened just the other day when a big brown box arrived on my doorstep. As soon as I saw the name LOUET all in bold on the side I immediately had butterflies. Naturally, I oh so carefully opened up the box and admired the pretties in front of me.
**Disclaimer** I was given the Louet June Fiber Pack for review, however all opinions are my own.**
Now, I had no idea just how much fiber you can stuff in a box. Crazy props to the shipping department for being able to add so much fluff in that box. Unlike those times I order a book online from a big bookstore and they send this huge sized box with like 30 feet of bubble wrap included, lol. Well Louet knows exactly how to ship things right. I tip my hat to you. Everything was wrapped in plastic and then wrapped in another bag. There’s zero chance of the elements ruining my pretty fibers inside the box. 🙂
As soon as I took the fiber out I wanted to lay it all out and roll around in it. Maybe that’s just me, but when I see merino/silk combos or the like it’s really hard to resist that urge. For the sake of not coming off as totally crazy in front of my kids, I just laid out all the pretty bags of wool and grinned….but I was totally daydreaming about doing it. 😉
Now ENTER an early bedtime for the kids, and busting out my spinning wheel from it’s obvious hiding spot. I was ready to spin some lovelies!!
At first I was going to spin full skeins of everything…but then I thought, you know there are sooooo many possible combinations of these I should probably just show off some sample skeins. So here ya go! All the sample skeins I spun up real quick for your gawking pleasure. By the way, if you plan on doing ANY spinning for the Tour de Fleece or Spinzilla you should jump and buy one of these packs. All the pretty colors, all the pretty fibers….this is filled with a lovely assortment perfect to stretch your abilities! And such a deal too!
Oh, yes I did spin up a whole skein. I grabbed half a bag of the Lupine Lavender Merino and half a bag of the Dusty Rose merino to make this thick-to-thin 3.7 oz skein. It’s Super Bulky size (4 WPI), 1 ply and a fun 58 yds worth. AND 100% Merino wool. Mmmm. Yes, it is as soft and fluffy as it looks. Ohmygosh, I LOVE this. I know Spinzilla is all about yardage, but my bulky flyer was begging for some thick-to-thin. I had to appease it. 😉
Next I took the Glacial Green- Merino Silk 80/20 and drafted thin singles, then navajo plied it to make a 3-ply bulky weight (7 WPI). This sample is .6 oz and 10 yds. It will be fun to add as an accent to one of my projects. 🙂 This spun so incredibly easy I barely had to try. The silk just flies through your fingers….and so luxuriously soft.
Alrighty, as soon as I saw the Tawny Gold-Merino in the box I immediately thought sunshine. It just made me smile. I combined it with the White-tencel top and my mystery silk in the bag. Squeeee!! It was so much fun to draft this. The tencel added little swirls of sunshine to my 1-ply fingering weight (14 WPI) and the extra special fiber was like drafting little pillows into it. I’m definitely spinning up a whole skein of this…it’s truly divine and I would LOVE to have a pair of socks from this. So fancy! This sample is .2 oz and 10 yds.
Now the pink Karaoke Gourami- 50% wool/50% soysilk had me scratching my head. I’ve never spun with this before but I have bought skeins made from it. I knew this would be a fun challenge. I added some white tencel to add a little bit of shine since the soysilk is a flat color. They did dye it a lovely pool of pinks though…it will be really fun to watch the variation in the full skeins once it’s all spun up. And just as expected it was harder to spin up. Lol. I wasn’t prepared how much more tugging it took. I found that pulling it apart into thinner strips before trying to draft really helped. Almost pull it apart to the size of pencil roving if you want to spin a thinner yarn. 😉 I made a DK weight (11 WPI) 1 ply, 22 yards, .6 oz yarn sample. Hah, this is one time when the fiber had a mind of it’s own and I was just along for the ride. I really like how it turned out. 🙂
The Natural Super dehaired Llama was spun up next. I wouldn’t recommend spinning a whole skein of just this fiber since llama is excessively warm on its own, but for the sake of getting to know the fiber I wanted to spin it by itself. First off, it smells like a petting zoo…but in the cutest I-want-to-feed-the-animals-and-take-a-picture-with-them sort of way. Oh, I love nature. This was SOOOO soft!! I pulled a little fluff out of the bag and without any effort this spun up into a sportweight (12 WPI) 1 ply. Super fuzzy too! Ahhhh, it’s adorable!! It really bloomed when I set the twist in hot water. It’s sooo soft and fuzzy! I might try knitting a mini llama from this. 😀 The sample is 7 yds and .2 oz, but it would be so fast to spin some more.
The one fiber I didn’t spin up was the wool/mohair. Because, come on…we all love a good wool/mohair. I already knew I was going to have fun with that. 😉
Like I said, there are soooo many possibilities with this fiber pack. Let the yardage fly off the bobbin in October when you spin during Spinzilla! This is the perfect pack to stock up and prep before your marathon session.AND I need to send a HUGE thank you to Louet for this wonderful opportunity. I LOVED every minute of this review and spinning these skeins up. I even love the smell of sheep when I set the twist in the yarn, lol. Thank you so much! Your fibers are such high quality and a dream to spin. 🙂
Now go get your own fiber pack! The retail price of these products are $196.50, but you don’t pay anywhere close to that. Here’s the link if you missed it.. LOUET -JUNE SPINZILLA FIBER PACK. 😉
Happy Spinning my Lovelies! 🙂
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