Last year I bought myself a Electric Eel Wheel from Dreaming Robots and several months into using it, I felt good enough about my ability to spin consistently to start tackling some color techniques. I quickly came across tutorials on a technique called fractal spinning and decided to test it out with my Paradise Fiber Club packages. This spin is using 3 out of the 4 colors I received in October of 2023.

Fractal spinning basically entails splitting your fiber supply in half, spinning one half in a color pattern you like, and the other half split into smaller repeats of the first half’s color pattern. Plying the two (or more) spools together creates a beautiful effect that, in my opinion, really showcases the chosen color palette in an interesting way. The most broken down repeats of the whole color pattern, the softer the striping effect when knit or crocheted will appear. Here’s a good tutorial on fractal spinning.

For this spin, I did one whole pattern of orange, purple, and blue and three repeats of that pattern in the second half. I had equal amounts of the orange and purple fiber, and a smaller amount of the blue. Here’s what came off the bobbins:

This can be done with a hand dyed braid by manually separating and weighing parts of the fiber based on colors. Here’s a fractal style spin I did from a carded bat where I had to manually separate the colors.