Why Should Spinners Have All the Fun?

I had BB roving, too, and I was feeling sorry for all the knitters who don't spin and can only gaze longingly at the stuff. (O.k., I was also feeling sorry for myself, who has no time to spin right now.) Then I remembered some article somewhere about knitting with unspun roving, and went to town.

My roving, Juniper, was about 4 yards long. If I split it in half, I'd have 8 yards; in quarters, 16 yards; and so forth. 32 yards isn't enough to knit a hat, and 64 is a very close call. (There's a hat in Colinette Point 5 that only uses one skein, which is about 60 yards, but I was scared.) 128 yards is enough to knit a hat, if the gauge is 4 sts per inch or thicker.

So I started to split the roving. I put one half aside and subdivided the other repeatedly. As I finished each split, I'd roll each strip into a very loose ball. I got 16 cute little balls of fluff.

I cast on at the top of the hat and started in:

It works! This is a US #13 needle, at about 2.5 sts per inch.

This is what the balls of fluff look like:


I'm figuring on a wide ribbed cuff. The best thing is that I'm only on my 5th ball of roving: not only do I have plenty of wool, I might have enough for a second hat! (Or mittens maybe?)