Spinning Samples...Craziness!

I know this flies in the face of everything we hold dear, like not knitting a gauge swatch and praying for good results, but I went and spun up samples to see what I'd like the finished yarn to be. This even involved water and twist setting. I get dizzy just thinking about it :)

In all seriousness, I thought I'd take a departure from my usual "let's see what happens" approach and actualy plan a project from start to finish. I still haven't nailed down a pattern, but there has been definite progress. I spun three different samples, all laceweight, in an attempt to figure out what I liked best. I went finer or thicker to compensate for the plying method, so they're all roughly the same weight. Pictures were taken in the middle of the night, so they may be a little dark.

First, we have a Navajo ply,



then a 2-ply,



and finally a single.



I could espouse the minimalistic glories of the simple single, but really, it means when you're done, you're done. I do feel drawn to one other thing, but I only have 2 ounces of these gorgeous golden green flecked maroon mohair locks and that's not nearly enough for a shawl. Here's a sample of one of the locks spun up, though. It's finer than the single shown above (I really need to include something for scale).



Of course, I'm still undecided.