The Third Circle

An illustration by a low-countries born artist,
Giovanni Stradano, dated 1587 showing the
Third Circle and the "hellhound" Cerberus.

According to Dante there were nine circles of Hell, each reserved for a particular type of sinner; the Third circle was for those who had been unrepentant gluttons in life. In that wretched place the unfortunate souls were watched over by the many-headed hound, Cerberus, whilst they lie insensate to the plights of their neighbours even whilst they indulge in all the pleasures that put them there in the first place. 

I shall let that fearsome creature of myth and legend watch over my personal skein of Gluttony, which is now complete. In the end some of the ideas that I'd had, including incorporating cellophane wrappers into the yarn itself, didn't make the cut - either due to technical issues or aesthetic ones; for example I decided that in making the Wensleydale locks more prominent they stood in for the splashes of colour that I'd hoped the wrappers would represent, I also liked the curly, bouncy, texture that they added.  I've also included a photo, for scale, of the yarn alongside a coin (about the same size as an American quarter).

I found it to be quite a challenge, or at least a change of pace, to spin something as full as this - usually the yarn I've made has been at least a little leaner than this, if not aiming to be a skinny weight thing. I had the wheel set on a lower twist ratio and had to do much less drafting (drawing out of fibres), though I did discover that it was better and easier to do some predrafting to prevent the yarn from being too dense. The locks themselves weren't too hard to work with, though they were quite tangled together and not all easy to untangle to use -- they do seem to be in there nice and firmly though I have no idea if I did it correctly...though there are no spinning police! (Something I read somewhere and liked the sentiment of).

The finished ball of yarn, happy with the finished colour.

Detail showing the tasty little morsels
 of colour amongst the chocolate.