Okay, Okay, so I’m still in my silk mood. I ordered 4oz of Bombyx silk from etsy. It is so much fun to spin, then I might have to see what I can do about dying it. Apparently silk dyes as easily as wool, it should be fascinating to see what colors I can create without losing the luster. I sincerely hope that I will be able to get at least 100 yards of 2 ply silk, but whatever I wind up will should be beautiful. So much fun!
Happy Crafting!
I purchased a 4oz roving of Corriedale Sliver in the Summer Days colorway by WoolverineFibers. I had spun up tiny bits here and there playing with my tahkli and the rich colors found in the roving. To pass my idle time, I work several part time jobs so idle time is made the most of before sleep, I pre-drafted the remainder of this roving into fine strips that would be easy to spin. Boy were they easy to spin! Before I knew it I had spun up half of the roving and the results were beautiful.
Since I had half of it spun and many of the articles I had read expounded upon the joys of 2 ply yarns I decided to create this yarn as a 2 ply. It is not perfect, but to be honest it isn’t garbage either. I had to deliberately twist this into a hank since once it was taken off of the niddy noddy it did not twist back on itself. This is the pre-washed skein and it might shorten up and twist more when it is washed, but for now most of a 4 oz section of roving created 148 yards of 2 ply yarn. I spun it in a worsted manner, occasionally trying a long draw but mostly succeeding with a short forward draw.
Washed and sampled materials will be posted later, I hope.
Happy Spinning!
Ever since I got my spinning wheel I have been spinning like a madwoman. Prior to this I had purchased a variety of fibers from various sources, many from etsy, to try out different fibers. One of the sources that I purchased little quarter ounce bags of various colors from was The Ross Farm. They are a farm trying to preserve rare breeds of sheep, an amazing aspiration that I am happy my purchase went toward. I bought some of the roving from the Chevoit’s they raise.
The colors were rich and beautiful, the hand was rough with short fibers. If you like spinning and are good at spinning cotton then this is a great fiber for you to spin, if you want to get to know how to spin cotton then start with Cheviot. I decided to use this fiber to practice my carding, I blended it with some Corriedale I purchased during the last Spinzilla sale. The results were these beautiful cottony clouds, mom says they look like cotton candy. They really do, they also spin up like cotton candy.
I had created about 9 rolags or rologs, and then spun 3 rolags onto each of 3 bobbins. The picture about is from when I took a break, the resulting singles are just beautiful. I cannot wait to ply them. Unfortunately wait I must, not only because I already have another project on my bobbins, but because the singles need to rest a bit before I try plying. I still have a few pieces of this Chevoit that I cannot wait to card up to spin another day. Now that my leg has healed from my first attempts at carding (Always wear jeans or have a tough cloth on your leg when you are carding, ouch!).
Happy Spinning!
This is my brand new batt from Crafty Creations out of Missouri. It is a fantastic piece of fiber, and I have already started spinning it. There is an amazingly bouncy texture to this fiber that makes if very different from the Corriedale that I have been spinning. I did split the batt into three sections and I am spinning each section separately, at the end I hope to have a three ply yarn.
This past week I decided to use my bottom whorl spindle to spin up a couple of mini-batts I purchased from Woolie Bullie out of Kansas, purchased through Etsy. The first batt started out looking like this:
These are two views of the same batt. I split this batt into two halves and spun two singles. I wound the singles onto (clean) chopsticks and plied them from there. The plied yarn on the spindle looked like this:
Then I used my Niddy Noddy to measure the yarn:
This first 1/4 oz batt gave me 17 yards, all of the design elements that caused this to be less than a ‘perfect spin’ are my own and I love them! I then cast on 20 stitches and using a stockette stitch on US9 needles I started knitting:
This is after 17 yards, well I love it and so I spun up the second batt:
Which yielded about 16 yards. I have that knit up but could not stop there! I am currently waiting with baited breath for my next Batt from WoolieBullie. So exciting, I hope that there will be enough to make a very nice scarf or cowl. I believe that when I finish knitting and wash the product, gently with Dawn, the finished knitted fabric will full out a bit and cause the absolute end product to look a bit different from this beginning.
For the WoolieBullie Dingbats, I highly recommend them. My first batt spun very quickly and easily, while it looked like there was a lot of white the end product was very colorful. There seemed to be a bit of a sticky substance on my second batt, but I believe that this is the result of having a few beautiful curly locks in the fiber and just surprised me instead of detracting from my spinning experience (obvious since I am getting another batt!).
A Little More Abstract 