Category: spinning

  • a wee dent

    At Rhinebeck 2006, I picked up a Blue Moon Sheep 2 Shoe kit from the Fold’s booth – after the STR line had mostly dissipated! Why, of course it’s taken me this long to get to it. I’m trying to get more spinning time in, and not acquire any more fibre for awhile…at least until I’ve pared down what I have!

    I followed their instructions and split the top lengthwise into thirds, except for the fact that hey, wool doesn’t necessarily do what you want! So when I spun up the three singles, the colours really didn’t align at all.

    I did up some as the three-ply from three bobbins, but I wasn’t really into how the colours were falling.

    marled

    This smallish skein is 49 g and 215 yards – perfect fingering weight.

    So I decided to cut that smaller skein short and do a chain ply (navajo ply) of the rest of it. Technically, I still have quite a bit of singles yet. I’ll get to it sometime.

    navajo plied yarn

    So I got this big skein of 130 g and…at least 500 yards? I haven’t counted. But I do think this will stripe up really nicely when knit. It’s got some marled sections, of course, but mostly solid areas.

    I’m pretty happy with it – took long enough to spin up! I think I’m going to do some thicker stuff next.

    sheep 2 shoe closeup

  • working on the stash

    The spinning stash, that is – I just washed up some finished handspun.

    yarn for an xmas present

    This is some Romney that I picked up *last* year at Rhinebeck. I bought three 8 oz. bags, and I’ve spun up about a pound. The roving was fantastic to work with – drafted like a dream, full of air. It was a bit hairy, as Romney is, but nothing crazy.

    mmm, wooly

    I bought two bags of one shade and one of a darker shade, so I decided to spin it up into a three-ply, where two of the plies would be the lighter shade and one ply the darker. Woolen prep, woolen spun (long-draw, fast). It spun up really, really quickly and washed up nice and soft.

    I think it worked out quite nicely – I think the yarn will knit up into a very cohesive fabric with a tweedy, marled look to the colour. I’ve done about 445 g, measuring in at about 900 yards. Just enough for the project I have in mind (a gift). I still have quite a bit of the roving left over so I’ll probably spin it up the same…but for now, more colourful spinning is calling my name!

  • yarn break!

    We interrupt your regularly scheduled wip/rip for this important update…don’t worry, I’ve got lots more on that front! I even took some more photos today to share with y’all. But I thought it was time for a wee break.

    Rhinebeck is in two weeks, and I’ve been madly trying to spin up some of the stuff I bought last year before I go buy more stuff! I’m actually doing pretty well, and a few different yarns have come off the bobbin recently…

    red/orange bombyx

    This firey red/orange pink one is 100% bombyx silk, not quite as searing as it appears in the photo (although it is certainly vivd). Checks in at 178 yards of worsted/chunky – it’s pretty uneven.

    bombyx silk

    More bombyx silk – pink/purple/gold, 160 yards of worsted/chunky. I was feeling a little impatient when I spun these skeins, hence the thickness and inconsistency! I was originally going to ply the two colours together, but at the last moment decided to just ply them on themselves – a good idea in terms of the colours, but difficult in execution. I had to wind off the two bobbins (one each of the two colours) into balls, then split the balls by weight since plying from both ends of a centre pull ball is a Very Bad Idea. As it was, it was pretty tricky to ply. But they both turned out okay.

    pretties

    Now, this one I’m particularly proud of (the photo too). It’s four ounces of merino/silk, I think it was 50/50, clocking in at 660 yards of a fine fingering weight or heavy laceweight. Enough to do a shawl! And it’s pretty consistent as well. Did I mention soft?

    All these fibres were purchased from the Carolina Homespun booth at Rhinebeck last year – I dropped a lot of money at that booth! There’s another two ounces of tussah silk that I’ve been working on from them, spun much finer. I’ve been spinning up some batts and trying to sit down at the wheel for at least a few minutes each day (in all my abundant leisure time!). I’m definitely seeing the difference from more practice these days!