Tour de Fleece, week one

Ahh: the Tour de France, where real men wear lycra and attempt incredible feats of endurance and stamina.  And the Tour de Fleece, where spinners do much the same, except with less lycra, more wool, and a distinctly lower requirement for high calorie intake.

This year, as well as I’ve challenged myself to do two things:

• Spin up enough of a wool/alpaca blend to knit a sweater later in the year, and
• Get to grips with my new Russian spindle (bought at Woolfest).

I have to admit that I haven’t gone near the Russian spindle since tidying up after my recent travelling sprees.  And, as it happened, I had no chance at all to do any of my own spinning on the first day of the tour – Saturday the 2nd – because I was demonstrating and teaching drop spinning at a friend’s come-and-craft birthday party.  Still, I consider spending several hours teaching spinning to new acolytes to be a good way to kick off the tour.

A bigger technical hitch was that I hadn’t actually finished carding the blended fibre for my sweater spinning.  I wanted to blend the seconds from the cocoa-coloured alpaca fleece with a grey wool that I, errrm, ‘washed’ mostly by putting it in cold water to soak ‘for a week’ sometime last year.  By this spring, it smelled pretty much like the bottom of a pond, and had green slime growing on the top.  However, the lanolin seemed to have mostly disappeared, so I finished washing it, and called it good.  It doesn’t smell bad any more; it reminds my of my dive kit, for some reason.  The quantities I had of each meant that I could produce a blend that’s roughly one-third alpaca.  This is what my sample batt looked like:

And here’s the two-ply yarn.  Very woollen, very lofty, very stretchy:

The blending has been an adventure.  Last weekend, I spent a day and a half on it, and got enough fully finished to keep me busy on the wheel this week.  This weekend, I’ve managed to finish the rest of the carding – thank goodness!  So, by the end of the first week of the tour, I have three very full bobbins of singles, plus a partial bobbin:

And a big box of batts – enough to keep me out of trouble for a wee while yet:

Kita is amazed

Wonderful Woolfest

Wow.  It’s Monday evening; I can hardly believe that I’ve been away since Friday lunchtime.  In some ways, it seems like forever since I was sitting on my own sofa – in others, the time has flown.

I don’t think I’ve ever driven as much in one weekend: up to Cumbria on Friday afternoon (five and a half hours travelling); over to my parents on the East coast side on Saturday evening (another two hours).  All of Sunday there, then back down to Cambridgeshire today (three and a half hours).  It may be small potatoes to some folks in America, who occasionally seem to drive thousands of miles in a weekend, but it’s a lot for me!

Anyway, I’m delighted to say it was very much worth it.  I’m so pleased that I decided to stay overnight, and on my own to boot.  It’s lovely to wander around a fair in company, but in some ways it was even nicer to just meander at my own pace, following my own whims, not worried about what anyone else wants to see, or if they think raw fleece is boring, or dealing with a group which inevitably includes one hungry person, one tired person, and someone who needs the loo.  (Misanthropic?  Moi??  Well, only sometimes!)

First order of the day, as soon as I was through the door, was the raw fleece stall.  This was the point at which I realised that I’d sorely miscalculated my ready cash requirements: I’d had to pay cash for quite a few things before I even got into the show, and there is no way to get cash near the site.  In addition, only some of the stallholders can accept card payments, so, after allocating a certain amount of money for fleece purchases, a strategic tour of the hall was necessary so that I could allocate my remaining readies appropriately!

Anyway: Fleece.  I bought two.  One, a Lincoln Longwool, with the most lovely, lustrous, white, curly locks:

The other a complete contrast: a mioget Shetland:

I’ve not had time to get either out of the bags for a really good look yet, but I’ll let you know all about it when I do!

Shopping was interrupted at around half 12 so that I could meet up for a good chat (and a bit more fleece fondling) with Cecilia from The Wool Clip, who I met in real life (instead of online) for the first time the night before, and who might just be my new best friend.  I By this time, I’d already acquired my star purchase for the event: a beautiful Russian spindle from IST Crafts:

Go on- click for bigger.  You won’t regret it!

My beautiful, wonderful, gorgeous spindle is made of sycamore, and has a brass tip (which I am hoping will help it not get damaged).  It is a beautiful object, as well as a wonderful tool, and the craftsmanship is impeccable.  I also have an adorable little ceramic bowl that it is designed to spin in; there is very little friction between the brass and the ceramic glaze.  I spent so long at their stall, admiring and playing with the spindles, that I think I probably made quite an impression.  And, I have to say, the feeling is mutual.  Both Ian and Jake were delightful to talk to, and really passionate about their products.  The customer service I received from them (on a seriously busy day) was second to none, and I’d buy again from them in a flash.

Cash wise, that pretty much wiped me out!  I had to reserve a certain amount of money for caffeine and food (to help fuel the shopping and the driving), but really – this Woolfest was all about the people for me.  Despite the fact that I went alone, the best parts of the show were the connections, the conversations, the shared enthusiasm and the mutual joy.  On my own schedule, obviously.

Until next year, Woolfest!

Playing with kettle-dyed locks

My spinning time has been quite varied recently: following the success of the Twilight Humbug roving (Gayle! Humbug roving is roving containing stripes of the natural sheep’s colours, like a mint humbug. You can see some great examples here; the BFL and Shetland are both a lot of fun to play with…), I moved on to kettle-dyed locks.

Kettle-dyeing fleece is very different to hand painting top, or roving, or yarn for that matter.  You are working with a much less processed stage of the wool, so it is much less homogeneous.  Different areas of the fleece have different qualities, including length, fineness, greasiness, crimp… the list goes on!  In addition, the tips of the fleece may take dye differently to the butt ends of the locks, so you can get some very interesting effects:

What you can’t get, so much, is predictability – or repeatability.  For a scientifically creative soul like myself, this is both thrilling and intensely frustrating.

Spinning dyed locks is also very different to working with prepared top or roving.  Of course, you could card or comb the locks, just like anything else, but with such thrillingly multicoloured fibre, why would you want to?

In addition, I’m a fundamentally lazy soul.  I’d much rather spend my time behind the spinning wheel than weilding a pair of hand cards.  So I’ve been flicking, and spinning directly from the lock.  Pictures follow – though not of the wonderful rainbow above: my test locks are Kerry Hill, dyed to a more uniform purple – though you can still see the different colour at the tips and butts:

And here’s my secret weapon – a flick carder from Ashford:

The head of a flick carder is about half the size of a regular hand-card, and the handle is much longer.  Also, they don’t come in pairs!  Flick carders are used singly, to open up the ends of locks in preparation for further processing (which can, of course, mean going straight to spinning).  So, how well does it work, would you say?

Frankly, I’m amazed.  Here’s a lock of the fleece before flicking:

The tip of the lock is resting on my index finger; that bit tends to be dryer, crispier and slightly brittle.  The butt end of the lock, hanging over my index finger, tends to be slightly greasier.

And here’s how flicking opens up the end:

Sproing!  Both ends flicked:

And really, can you imagine a more perfect prep?  Look how open and even it is!  And again: one lock unflicked; one lock flicked:

And then? Fold it over your finger…

…and spin from the fold!

(Or you can spin from the end, for a more worsted style yarn, but this particular fleece is just *begging* for longdraw).

Obsession du jour

Well, du semaine, I suppose.  I’ve been doing a lot of experiments in dyeing fibre recently – which of course means that I need to test the dyed fibre by spinning it.  Sometimes my life is so hard. 

This is about 30 g of BFL humbug roving, dyed in ‘twilight’, which is a mixture of dusky blue, purple and blue-green.  The brown in the humbug roving darkens and richens the colours further, but because it’s not a solid blend, there’s quite a lot of contrast mixed in, too.

I started spinning the singles on Tuesday evening, and the regular spin night, and have been taking every moment to spin since – until late Saturday, when I finished the plying.  Now I have about 300 metres of a heavy laceweight/light fingering weight yarn to play with.

I think it’s safe to say it spins up just fiiiine, don’t you?

Marvellous Marling

Another round of sickness and exhaustion has seen my knitting progress go backwards rather than forwards over the last few days, but I *do* have spinning progress to report.  My original plan was to spin up all the singles, then get to plying, but I missed out the fairly obvious logistical observation that I don’t have any storage bobbins, so I sort of had to start the plying early.

I was concerned that the contrast between the two yarns might make for an unattractive barberpole effect; after all, the grey that I dyed was quite dark and the blue/yellow quite intense:

However, I’m delighted to report that the two colours are playing together *beautifully*.  The grey tones down the blue (which lightened considerably as I spun it, anyway), and I’m getting a wonderful palette of weathered, denim-y grey-blues.

What I have actually produced is a very attractive marled yarn, which I think will work well with the relatively simple lace of the Shipwreck shawl.

This morning, I wound off a 72g skein, measuring 228m.  Meaning I will have around 600m total yardage out of my 200g.  Or about half what I need for the shawl.  Options:

• forge ahead with the original pattern, accepting that it will be smaller;
• modify the original pattern to maintain the pattern/fishnet ratio (but of course it will still be smaller);
• make a half-circle shawl based on the original pattern, which will be About Right in terms of yarn usage;
• follow some inspiration I had, based on the original pattern, to produce a rectangular stole…

Oh – I was particularly worried that the yellow in the ‘bright’ fibre would clash with the overall feel of the yarn.  I hoped that it would hint at that yellow-grey overcast that presages some of the nastier thunderstorms, but wasn’t totally confident that it would.

I think it does.  Don’t you?

Chipping away

There has been so much going on in my little corner of the world, I haven’t had time to write about it!  Since Textiles In Focus, I’ve been to two craft fairs, been booked for a teaching gig in Norwich, at least one more craft fair and a demonstration day at Anglesey Abbey to boot, been over to Bury St. Edmunds to sell some of my yarns to Wibbling Wools, hosted J’s Mum for a long weekend of socialising and sightseeing, applied for two major shows, booked a nice man in to take down the Evil Laylandii in the garden and replace them with a fence, met up with Geodyne, back from the antipodes (briefly), and had gastroenteritis (not recommended).  And there’s more!  That’s just the highlights.

(The dogs still know how to relax, though.)

Of course, planting season in the garden should be in full swing, but with a few exceptions, I’m barely getting started.  I *have* managed to water the ground with nematodes, though.  I’m hoping to keep the slug and snail population down to a reasonably low level this year, and thereby increase the yield of some of our crops.

I am spinning every day this week, as part of a challenge on one of the Ravelry groups I belong to.  I really want to restart my practice of spinning for 15 minutes in the morning, before work; it sets me up for the day far better than anything else I have tried, and yet I so often skip it, because I ‘don’t have time’.  I’m hoping to finish the singles for the Shipwreck shawl; I have one bobbin (about 60g worth) of the blue spun up, and I’m well under way with the grey.  These two fibres, despite both being Corriedale, feel so different to spin that it will be interesting to see how they ply together.

Also….  I hope to have a great, big, huge announcement to share in the next few days (not a baby, no).  I’m so excited, but I don’t want to jinx it, so… later!

Long draw vs. short draw: Corriedale samples

My word, I’m behind on my blogging.  Eleven days’ silence – more, over a fortnight, if you don’t count my last little pop-in to say I’m feeling quiet.

The humbug Shetland I last blogged about is now all spun up, and even washed.  It’s currently hanging about somewhere in the pile of clean laundry on my stairs; it just needs re-skeining or winding into a ball, and then I can take some beauty shots of it to show you.

Once I was done with the Shetland, I returned to the grey Corriedale.  I spun up a second 10g sample, this time long-draw from the fold, then washed and dried both samples.  Last Saturday – a gloriously sunny day – I photographed them both, side by side:

Even in the small version of this image you can see the difference; it’s really obvious if you click through for the full size version.  The first sample (left), spun from the end of the roving, has two very distinct plies, and a smooth, compact appearance; the second (right) is much fuzzier.  The plies merge into each other, and the yarn even appears darker and more uniform in colour, I think because it is less ‘shiny’.  Also: the fibre ‘wants’ to draft out to a finer single when spun from the fold.

Over my fingers, the differences are again very pronounced:

You can see the overall difference in thickness, as well as the fuzzier, less distinct nature of the long-draw yarn (top).  Neither of these are examples of *great* spinning, but I think it’s fair to say that spinning from the end produces a ‘prettier’ yarn.  Beginner spinners, in particular, seem to value that smooth, distinct-ply, almost beaded appearance.  But, as spinners, we are not creating an end product (let’s leave ‘art yarn’ out of this for now).  Instead, we are creating something that will be used in future processes – whether knit, crocheted, woven or knotted – and the yarn we produce should be suitable for that purpose.  The long draw method (especially once my technique is more refined) will clearly be well-suited to producing yarns for knitting garments, whether singles or plied, as well as some awesome weft yarns.

As for the shipwreck shawl, I might actually get enough yardage out of my two braids, spinning it this way.  I’m still struggling to reconcile my usual expectation of lace yarns (smooth, compact, un-bouncy enough to hold a good blocking) with the character of the yarn I am creating.  A fundamental problem, I think, is that I am using Corriedale, which does not *want* to be a smooth, compact, un-bouncy yarn.  There is no fix for this, except to switch my expectations.  And that may not be an unreasonable thing to do; the large outer border of the Shipwreck Shawl is not actually designed to be blocked, as such.  That’s what gives it that wonderful, ruffled effect.  So.. spin on?

Long draw from the fold

This is addictive.  And fast.  I usually spin for 15 minutes in the morning, and I’m almost done with the first half of this roving:

Baa Humbug (Shetland), in Hawthorn Tree

OK, it’s only a 50g piece, but that’s still pretty fast going for me.

I wanted to spin this for the Fair Isle stash, but I was worried that the tonal variation would make a yarn that was too ‘lively’ for colour work.   I thought spinning from the fold might help blend the stripiness a bit, even if not the variation in greens.  So to spin it, I’m breaking off pieces from the end:

And holding each one folded over the index finger of my left hand:

(That tuft is a touch too long for optimal drafting, incidentally.  I’ve since discovered that it works best when the ends of the tuft don’t go far past my thumb.)  You can’t really tell in this photo, but I’m holding the ends of the tuft lightly-but-firmly between my middle finger and thumb.  Whilst we’re here, look at that photo again.  Squint a bit.  Be imaginative.  Can you see how it sort-of resembles the end of a rolag?  At least, the flow of the fibres is around my finger.  And we’re going to draft perpendicular to that flow, by attaching the leader (or bit of yarn you’ve just spun) to the tip of the fold, like so:

From here, you can spin an impressive English-type longdraw: just start treadling, and pull back!  Get the speeds right, and twist will flow into the yarn at just the right rate to balance your drafting.  (At this point, I tried to video the procedure.  This is a one-handed draw, so theoretically Not Impossible.  However, it’s safe to say that videoing things is even trickier than photographing them, so the output was pretty much all Fail.  I will get J to help me video the technique sometime soon, however.  For sure.)

Now, it has to be said that no woollen-style long draw technique is going to produce a single that is as smooth and even as carefully-spun worsted draw.  And your bobbins aren’t going to look as beautiful and evenly filled:

But, boy, I can’t wait to see this plied.  Spin on!

More thoughts on Shipwreck

In my earlier post, I was grumbling that the Corriedale roving was too bouncy and springy to spin into a laceweight yarn – and yes, it’s definitely not ‘right’ for the yarn I had in mind.

But now… I’m thinking that the yarn I had in mind isn’t necessarily ‘right’ for Shipwreck.  Shipwreck calls for a fingering weight yarn, and lots of it; it’s a big, snuggly shawl.  I’m thinking I can spin a snuggly fingering-weight.

In fact, I did.  This is spun from the end of the roving, so semi-worsted, in about the thickness that the fibre seems to ‘want’.  I washed it fairly roughly to get it to bloom, and I love the end result (though this is one colour only, not the marl I had planned):

Only trouble is, at 30m/10g, I’d have about half the required yardage for the shawl.  (Well, not the only trouble, as a matter of fact.  The other trouble is that Woody wanted some attention too; he seems to have hurt his back or hip on yesterday’s walk, and he’s a bit sorry for himself, and extra-snuggly.  So his nose was in All The Shots this morning, poor boy).  Anyway, I might not manage to make a Shipwreck with this fibre, but I have an idea for an alternative design, drawing on some of the elements from Shipwreck, that I could use instead.

Whilst waiting for the mini-skein to dry, I started playing with some of the Shetland humbug, spinning long-draw from the fold.  Whooooo!  I’ve not done this before, at least on a wheel.   It’s a bit like spinning from rolags, except with less carding.  It’s producing light, lofty woollen singles, , and I think it might work awesomely well for the Corriedale, too.  So I’m going to do another Corriedale sample, and see what weight it comes out at and if I like the fabric.  I’ll probably even swatch.

But only once the Shetland is done.  I only have so many bobbins, after all.

Something new on the wheel

Since finishing the alpaca/BFL back in February, my spinning wheel has been shamefully naked (and probably a bit chilly, to boot).  The reason, of course, being Textiles In Focus.  (Is there anything I can’t blame on that show??)

Now it’s over, I want to get back to my habit of spinning for 15 minutes in the morning, so last night I dug out these two braids of Corriedale roving:

The blue one was a thank you gift; the grey one was dyed by me.  The idea was to ply the two colours together, to get a stormy blue/grey laceweight for the Shipwreck Shawl (Ravelry link; the original pattern is available for free here, from Knitty).

The only trouble is, I don’t think Corriedale is the right wool for the yarn I want.  I have more of the grey than the blue, so I used the grey for a bit of a sample this morning.

Looks lovely, doesn’t it?  Unfortunately, if I give this yarn enough twist to look ‘right’ for lace, it becomes quite springy and almost stiff.  Corriedale fibre is quite crimpy, and although it’s relatively fine, it has quite a lot of body.  I think this shawl demands a flow-y yarn with good drape and much less of that woolly bounce and resilience.

My second sample is a bit thicker and more loosely spun:

It might not look quite so pristine as the first, but I think it plays to the natural characteristics of the wool far better.  Although I’ve spun both of these samples from roving, from the end (so at least semi-worsted), this second sample has an almost woollen feel – lofty, open, lots of air.

I think my Corriedale would very much like to be spun woollen.  I have plenty remaining to sample with, so I could try carding some and spinning long-draw from the rolags. (It would make a great addition to the Fair Isle stash, I have to admit).  I could also spin larger quantities of each sample, and wash them, since we know that can significantly change the quality of a yarn.  (Wow, that would be very mature of me).  But either way, I don’t think that these braids are going to become the Shipwreck Shawl.

Dammit, spinning, why do you keep making me think?!  And double dammit, I really thought that the colours would be excellent for the project I have in mind, so it’s such a pain that the texture is wrong.