Fractal Stripes from Blended Tops

Blended tops are created using solid-color dyed fibers that are blended in a machine known as a gill box, which combs the fibers to blend, straighten and align them. They are usually processed—or gilled—more than once, and each pass makes the fiber smoother and more aligned but also results in the colors being less and less distinct from each other.

After the first gill, the component colors are clearly visible and could be separated by hand easily. By the second gill, the colors have become much more blended. You may also see this type of fiber referred to as “humbug.”

The problem with applying a traditional fractal spinning technique to blended tops is that the colors in blended tops run vertically, rather than horizontally as they do in most handpainted tops, so splitting them as you would for a standard fractal gives a very different result.

Instead of thinking about the act of splitting the fiber, we need to focus on what’s happening with the colors. In a fractal yarn, blocks of distinct colors appear in succession, and replicating this with blended tops requires some rearranging of the fiber. Just because the colors happen to be arranged in a particular way by the manufacturer doesn’t mean they have to be spun that way!

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