Finding Inspiration for Stone Soup Carding

In the upcoming Summer issue, Jennifer shares her method for creating Stone Soup blends that stretch the possibilities of her stash. We asked her to share a little bit more about where she finds inspiration for these beautiful blends. Enjoy this sneak peek into Spin Off Summer 2026, and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss her tips for Stone Soup Carding!

—Spin Off editors

If your fiber stash has accumulated like mine, it’s probably full of lots of smaller quantities of fiber—leftovers from larger projects, small dye experiments, and impulse purchases you bought “just to try it out.” You have a lot of fibers, but not enough of any one thing for larger projects. My desire to transform my diverse stash into larger projects led to my Stone Soup Carding technique, which I’ll walk you through in my Spin Off Summer 2026 article.

Sometimes, I will go stash-diving with a specific theme in mind, pulling together everything that suits the color or mood I am aiming for, as in Olive Green and Mr. Blue Sky. One lovely advantage of carded rolags is that I can keep adjacent colors more distinct than in a dyed braid, so the theme can contain contrasting colors side-by-side without mixing to unwanted shades. For example, in Starry Night, I created distinct stripes of teal and golden yellow without creating green where they meet.

Maybe a single fiber will inspire your collection, like a beautiful handpainted braid that you can augment with similar solid colors or a harmonizing neutral from your stash. Glacier Glow was inspired by an Angelina-rich wool roving that begged to be carded with all the icy blues that I could gather. Each blend has its own theme, but where does the inspiration come from? Let’s take a look!

Inspired by Necessity: Olive Green

The first Stone Soup project was born of necessity. I wanted to spin some yarn in olive green, but only had an ounce or two on hand, which was not enough for what I had in mind. What I did have was a blending board, and lots of olive-adjacent fibers, including some teals and chartreuses. I hoped they could blend with the olive fibers to create a larger quantity that would read as Olive Green.

The fiber that went into the Olive Green colorway.

The resulting rolags were delightful, with shine, depth, and varied texture, and best of all, came out looking just like the olive green that I needed. My fiber stash was suddenly full of even more potential! Here are a couple more of my Stone Soup creations.

Inspired by Art: Starry Night (over the Rhône)

For the 2023 Spin Off Spin-Along, I was inspired by Van Gogh’s Starry Night over the Rhône to spin yarn for a shawl. The middle would be the deep indigo of the night sky, and the wide edging would be the golden reflection of the street lights in the deep teal river. I stayed with just Merino wool and silk, for smoothness and glow, and a semi-solid hue for each of the three colors. To avoid having to knit stripes and weave in ends, I carded the gold and teal into the same rolags, so the finished yarn would make wavering stripes of gold, just like the reflected streetlight in the painting.

Jennifer’s starting point for her Starry Night Blend.

Note how the teal and gold portions sit next to each other in the rolags without blending to green.

Inspired by Fiber + Nature: Glacier Glow

At our weaving guild’s Plaid Llama sale (an event in which we sell our stash to each other), I acquired an irresistible sparkly roving made of Merino and silver stellina fiber, which made me think of icicles. With the addition of all the icy blues in my stash, these ended up looking just like the inner glow of a glacier.

Undyed fiber is a great way to extend more expensive dyed fibers in your stash.

Inspired by Music: Mr. Blue Sky

On a perfect summer day in the Pacific Northwest, I was admiring the clear blue sky and the soft scattered clouds in it, when the song “Mr. Blue Sky” by Electric Light Orchestra popped into my head and wouldn’t leave. So I decided to celebrate the happy energy by collecting fibers for another Stone Soup spin. I started with a bit of roving I had dyed as a shop sample, with blues and sea-greens, then chose a large quantity of eri silk and some undyed wools to dilute the dyed blues to just the right sky blue. Aiming to recognize even the subtlest of colors involved, I added some bits of sunny yellow and clear pink, and then iridescent Angelina to reflect all the colors. This batch I blended on my drum carder, for maximum cloudy fluffiness.

You can also use a drumcarder to blend your fibers together.

Inspired by Flowers: Pink Petals

I always gravitate to pinks when purchasing fiber. This was the idea behind my most recent pink carding project. In my quest for the perfect pink fiber, I ended up with a variety of not-quite-perfect pinks that have now come together into a very promising blend. This most recent Stone Soup project is inspired by perfect pink rose petals, with streaks of leaf green and black cherry. I have not yet decided whether or not it requires sparkle—stay tuned!