My First Pencil Roving

On the way home from our trip to the Kentucky Sheep & Fiber Festival in May, I was lucky enough to be able to stop and visit Blue Mountain Spindle & Needleworks shop in Elizabethtown, Kentucky.  While there, I purchased 100% Fine Merino in fabulous colors: spice, green and lilac. 

 On my homemade hackle (see post "Hackle DYI Discovery" on this blog or click link to see instructions for making your own hackle  http://yarnzombie.net/Travis/?page_id=87)
 

I placed each color across and then another across until the hackle was almost full.  Then with the fender washer a.k.a. "a diz",

I pulled the fine merino colors together to make a pencil roving, my first pencil roving.  It was not easy but eventually got the hang of what I was doing and made three very nice balls of roving.  

As the evening grew on though, I made a huge mess.  I got tangled up somehow and the merino would not slide out of the hackle as it previously was.  I'm ready to try again.  I hope to make enough pencil roving to spin a single ply with it to knit or crochet something pretty and unique.