Rare breed Spin-A-Long - Dorset Down

Brindle Shetland yarn, finished skein 466 yards

Rare breeds of sheep are so interesting.  The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook by Deb Robson and Carol Ekarius is one of my favorite sources of information on breeds of sheep and the qualities of their wool. Yet it gives only the kind of knowledge that reading provides.  As a spinner, I love the tactile qualities of the wool.  So I was immediately attracted to the Knit Spin Farm Rare Breed Spin-A-Long (SAL) that started back on the first of January.  I mentioned the Shetland that I did as my first project.  Since I posted last, I finished the skein.  It ended up being 40 wraps per inch in the singles and about light fingering weight in the finished chain plied yarn. 

Close up of Brindle Shetland yarn

Statistics: 3.7 ounces, 106 grams. 466 yards of chain ply yarn.  Spun singles clockwise on the Kromski Fantasia, chain plied on the Louet S10 13 treadles.



Dolly Dorset - raw lock from darkest portion of fleece

Now that I've finished the Shetland, I decided to do more with the Rare Breed SAL.  Thought through the list and decided on the Dorset I have in my stash.  Remember Dolly from the color study?  I'm working with her fleece on its own this time.  Took a couple ounces and prepared them on my wool combs to produce a semi-worsted top.  I did not lock wash this fleece, and I'm not concerned about having a fully worsted preparation since this is a down wool.  I wanted to have some fun with the bounce, and by combing I thought I'd be able to reduce the fuzzy factor of the finished yarn somewhat.  This is what the fiber looked like beforehand.

Saving a lock out of the raw fleece is an excellent idea, since I seldom am able to process a whole fleece at the same time.  Typically, I'll do a small sample and start the record keeping in a spinning journal.  The pages aren't in any particular format, but I do try to record things that I do with the fleece. 



Combed nests of Dolly Dorset's fleece

Back to the raw lock, there is a good reason to save it.  The crimp pattern is most obvious in a raw lock that is undisturbed.  In this particular fleece the crimp is very orderly and consistent from end to end.  The brownish tips are somewhat weathered since this fleece was not covered with a sheep coat.  Being a down wool, it should be (and has been) pretty resistant to felting.  This particular lock shows length of about four inches, which is longer than usual for down wools. A happy surprise indeed, since it allows a lot more options for processing and spinning this wool.  I usually use the snack size ziplock bags to preserve the raw lock and make a note of the breed, the name or ear number of the sheep, the source and price and the weight of the fleece and whatever other things I notice at this stage of working with the fleece.  Then I toss the bagged lock back in with the fleece.  As I process the fleece, I tag the bags as I go along so that I don't lose track of which one it is and what I've done with it.  With a raw fleece, I put any notes in a page protector since the grease of the wool will affect the paper - sometimes to the degree of obliterating the notes I've made - not a happy discovery!

Finished skein of combed Dolly Dorset

Down wools come from several breeds of sheep, and the saddest part is that few shepherds that raise them are much concerned with the quality of the fleeces and treat the fleece as more of a nuisance than a profitable product that the sheep are producing.  Perhaps this SAL and others like it can encourage a few more shepherds of these down wool breeds to place more value on these fleeces.  This particular fleece seems to be from a shepherd that does have some care for the spinning quality of the fleeces they are producing.  That being said, the fleece was still quite reasonably priced when I bought it through Ebay.  Many shepherds use Ebay and Etsy to sell their fleeces, and with the exception of the Nasty Romney, I've had little or no trouble with inaccurate descriptions.  Most sellers are very honest about the qualities of their fleeces - sometimes even exaggerating the amount of vegetable matter to be sure the buyers know what they are getting, and discounting the price to make it more appealing if there is veg in the fleece.  Such was the case with Dolly's fleece.  It was described as having some veg, which it did, but not nearly the quantity I was expecting.

Close up of the finished yarn

The spinning was smooth and easy.  The combed preparation drafted smoothly, and I did much less predrafting than I typically do.  I spun with a medium backward draw since the staple length was allowing me to do so. The singles were very fine and the plying went well.  Overall, I continue to be impressed by how well-behaved this fleece is.  Everything just works, smooth and simple. The fiber does shed slightly while spinning, and feels somewhat dry in comparison to other wools I've worked with.  I don't know if this is characteristic of the down wools or not.  I've got an order in to another shepherd for some Dorset roving to test this idea, but being a commercial prep, so I'm not sure the comparison will be valid. 

The statistics on this skein are: 31 grams, 1.1 ounce, 124 yards.  Spun singles clockwise on the Kromski Fantasia and chain plied counterclockwise 13 treadles on the Louet S10. 

Dolly Dorset carded batt

Part of my purpose for this wool in the SAL is to compare combing and carding prep on the same fleece.  I'm looking forward to finishing the woolen prep I did for this study.  I've started on it already, and the main difference I've noticed is that I'm pulling out the neps as I spin.  I rather expected this, since combing removes them before spinning.  Woolen preps mean less waste at the processing step, but more at the spinning step.  Still less overall compared with combing, since it leaves the different fiber lengths in the batt.  Combing sorts out the longest fibers and keeps them well aligned in the top.  It is a trade off in some respects, but the end product can be vastly different.  Since I wanted to test the difference in prep, I'm spinning the singles in the same way, medium backward draw, clockwise on the Kromski and I'm about halfway through the batt.  It looks and feels similar in the singles.  The washing of the plied yarn will tell a better story.  The combed prep seemed less bouncy than I expected after the washing.  The value of doing the two similar skeins side-by-side will show the difference in bounce by the length of the finished skein.  I expect the woolen prep to be much shorter in length since the crimp isn't as altered.  I'll have my answer soon.



Welcome to the frog pond... are you hungry?

Discovered this in my inbox this morning and thought it made a certain amount of sense, so I'll share it with you too.  It is a little video (under two minutes) that really made me think about what my own "frogs" are.

http://www.flickspire.com/m/AdvancedLi255/EatThatFrog

So here's my first live frog... a frogging project!  I've decided to "frog" the cabled sweater so it will stop bothering me.  In case you aren't a knitter, "frogging" is where you discover a mistake a few rows back, and "rip-it, rip-it, rip-it" back so it can be re-knit.  Hopefully correctly on the second try.  Some projects take many trips to the frog pond.  I had a sweater that I had completely finished knitting the pieces and frogged it all the way back because I didn't like the fit.  I blogged about that here, just scroll down the page until you see the red-violet sweater.

See how the ribs mis-match the cables... bummer!

So here is the shot of the mistake side of the sweater... I showed you the good side last post.  See how the cables don't line up with the ribbing.  That was making me unhappy, because that is one of the things I really liked about the pattern.  Since I hadn't done cables in a while, I followed the pattern precisely rather than making sure it made sense on the reality of the needles.  When I converted the pattern to knitting in the round the stitch count didn't line up to the pattern anymore - probably because of the stitches not being lost into seamlines of the finished sweater.  In any event, I'll reknit this in the round and watch more carefully to be certain that the ribs line up with the cables.

This is the part that always makes me go "hmmmmm....." because as satisfying as it is to watch a mistake disappear, there is the niggling consternation over how long it takes to knit this amount of yarn versus how quickly it can be made back into just balls of yarn again.  In any event, it is finished now and I can consider how to start again to make the ribbing line up.



Back to being balls of yarn, needles and a pile of markers.

Part of the reason for the error is that I hadn't done cables in such a long time that I didn't really watch where the stitches of the cable were coming up on the pattern over the ribs.  I was too busy counting stitches!  It is going to be a matter of lining up the knit stitches of the cable pattern over the knit stitches of the ribbing.  Sounds easy enough, but there are several charts working at the same time - six different charts in each row.  I've made myself a "cheat sheet" of sorts where I've made photocopies of the charts, which are different sizes, and I keep a colored pencil with me so that I can mark off the rows as I finish them.  Ponderous, I know, but it is a way to keep track that works for me.  There are chart keeping systems out there that use magnets to line up on the papers, but I don't have one of them.  Since I keep my pattern on a clipboard that goes in and out of a project bag, I'm not sure the magnets would stay in place.



Brindle Shetland roving and bobbin of singles in process.

The next thing I've been working on is the Shetland roving I started on the last post.  I've got over half of it finished now.  2.6 ounces of the 4 ounces I started with are now spun into singles.  This is such luscious wool - I'm loving the way it spins up, fine and soft and very different from the commercial Shetland yarn I've encountered in yarn shops.  I spent some time with my Mom today and since she remembers the days when Shetland sweaters were all the rage, I asked her about them.  Wondering if maybe the wool was better back then, like the hand processed roving I'm using now.  She said it was dreadfully scratchy to wear those sweaters, and she had to be sure to wear some kind of firmly woven shirt underneath those stylish sweaters!  What young women go through to be fashionable.... seems that it never changes. 

I take a certain comfort in knowing that as a spinner, I really can do a lot to make my yarn be exactly what I want it to be.  Granted, there are some wools that really are never going to be "next to the skin" soft.  There are many others that can either be blended with other kinds of fiber, or handled more gently in processing that will come very close to being that soft.  Soapbox I'm hauling out now: the medium wools may not be as soft as the finewools, but they are lots more pleasant to spin, more durable, and by buying raw fleeces or roving from local shepherds I get to support small, local farms.  That is so important to me... having had a farm of my own for ten years.  The driving force behind this rare breed spin-a-long is to encourage spinners to at least try some fiber that is new to them.  I can use myself as an example of how surprising the project can be.  I would cheerfully buy more of this kind of roving from this farm.  Shetland sheep have a claim to fame in their colored wool - there are eleven "official" colors and many patterns of markings on these tiny sheep.

The worn heel of my favorite slippers.

Garter stitch patches, about 4 inches square.

Next thing I've been working on is some mending.  I'd prefer to mend than to remake things as much as possible... use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without is something of a mantra for me.  Not a popular idea in current culture, but one that I strive to live.  This particular mending project is a pair of slippers that I knit and felted about a year ago.  I've loved them nearly to death, and now they need patching.  These slippers are from a felting book that I just love.  There are many projects that I want to try, but I've done these twice.  When I do mending, I try to catch spots that are wearing thin before they become holes - which are much harder to fix!  I decided since the rest of the soles of the slippers are in pretty good shape, I'd just patch the heels.  My thinking was that since the stockinette wore out faster on the heels, I'd do the patch in garter stitch to get more yarn into the same amount of space.  I knit up a couple of squares of garter stitch, casting on 20 stitches on size 8 needles and working until the pieces were square.  The next step is to felt the squares.  I'll put them into a "delicates" bag and throw them into a heavy duty wash with low water level and plenty of soap - with a couple pairs of old jeans for company - and beat the fuzz out of them until they become good, firm felt.  Having done some of this kind of felting before, I'm pretty sure they won't be square at the end of the process, but since it will be felted, I could cut them to a specific size if I wanted. 

My favorite, although well worn, slippers.

Here is my project page from Ravelry on these slippers.  And here is a shot of what they look like today.  The soles are in pretty good shape, but the superwash sock yarn tops are still like new.  Superwash wool is amazing stuff!  This is done in Wildfoote from Brown Sheep yarn company.  Still available, but I don't know if this colorway is still part of their line up.  I bought this yarn years ago, and did a stash dive to make these slippers over a year ago.  I've been so impressed by the durability of these slippers and I've made another pair since then so I can always have a pair to wear - they take a couple days to dry after being washed - felt is pretty dense stuff!  The felt does relax a bit with wear, so washing and doing a little massage job on the worn parts tightens the felt a bit, but these are to the point that the felt doesn't have the ability to tighten up enough anymore.

My condo is on a slab foundation, and the thickness of these slipper soles keeps the chill off my feet very well indeed.  I'm off to make felt patches....



Happy New Year!

Shetland Wool - Brindle roving from Bramble Wool Farm
This blend is 49% Black/51% White Shetland in natural colors.

So begins another adventure!  Since I work third shift, I was awake for the midnight change of year.  I celebrated by spending the night spinning some lovely Shetland Brindle roving from Bramble Wool Farm.  It is part of a Rare Breeds Spin-a-long with Joanna and the folks over at the Knit Spin Farm podcast.  This wonderfully prepared roving followed me home from the 2012 Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival back in September.  I had a hankering to experiment with Shetland wool, but the tiny skeins I found for very high prices at my local yarn shop certainly put a damper on my enthusiasm!  That being said, there are wonderful rainbows of color available in those gorgeous Jamieson yarns!  Since this wool is so often used for Fair Isle knitting, I suppose that it makes a certain amount of sense to have small skeins available.  I think I'll chain ply the singles I'm spinning and perhaps dye it in several colors to play around with some Fair Isle.  Here's what I have done so far:

1.8 ounces spun into singles on the Kromski, pretty fine singles

This will probably be a chain plied yarn.  I prefer the rounder cross-section of three strands to the flat nature of two-ply yarns even though the two-ply is what is traditionally used for Fair Isle work.  I have four ounces of this roving, so I'm just about halfway through it already.

Some things were surprising as I spun this Shetland.  I was sure it would feel very scratchy and rough like the commercial yarn I saw at the shop.  To my delight, it is softer than expected and it drafts well.  As I browsed the farm's website, I did discover that they hand wash their fiber, which may account for the softness and the very slightly "oiled" feel of the roving while I draft it.  Hand washing the wool allows it to retain just a touch of the natural oils to remain in the strands of the wool.  It is a matter of opinion whether this is a good thing or not - but I prefer it for spinning, since it allows the fibers to slide along each other more smoothly.  Commercial preparation strips out all the natural oils and, to me, makes the fiber seem parched and dry.  It also straightens most of the wave and crimp in the fibers which deadens the bounce and lively nature of hand processed wools.

As I mentioned in my last post, I have started the Shipwreck shawl and I'm thrilled with the way it is turning out.  Here is the first "in progress" shot I took at the end of the 5th section, called Bleeding heart lace, of the pattern. It is pinned out on a blocking mat for the picture, since knitted lace is less than lovely just sitting on the needles.  This measured about ten inches in diameter when pinned out.

I have continued into the next section, called Madeira, and shot another picture after stringing a very long cable through the stitches.  You might notice a white thread strung through the stitches a few rounds from the edge.  This is called a "life line" and is a clever way of retaining sanity while working complex lace patterns.  Lace is difficult to rip back in the event of a mistake since the holes cross the boundaries of the rows.  Life lines are threaded through the stitches of a round, and make it possible to replace the knitting needle correctly in the round if the knitting has to be ripped back.  The needles I'm using have a nifty way to accomplish this.  There is a small hole in the end of each cable connection to tighten the interchangeable needle tips - this is also useful to make life lines, just string some sewing thread through the hole at the beginning of the round.  This draws a thread through each stitch in the round.  At the end of the round, the life line is placed - much easier than other ways!  The only trouble is that it also takes the thread through all my markers.... This time, I did slip the thread out of the markers, but I think next time I'll just do another life line about five rounds later and leave the thread in the markers.  In any event, here is a picture three rounds into the Madeira pattern.

Notice that in just a few rounds the size has increased enough that it takes four of the mats to pin it out into round now!  Probably about eighteen inches in diameter now.  This style of shawl construction is called "Pi shaping" since the increases come at intervals where the stitch count doubles in a single round.  Makes it simple to keep track of the increases.

The other project, the cabled sweater, is in time out at the moment.  I've made an error when I converted the pattern to knitting in the round that altered the stitch count and the cables didn't line up exactly as I had hoped.  I'm not sure anyone would notice but me, yet part of the appeal of the sweater pattern was that the cables grew up out of the ribbing.  So I'm trying to decide if it bothers me enough to pull it out and fix it.  I'm about twenty rounds into the pattern, and it is gorgeous, but the mistake at the edge is pulling at me.  I'll probably frog it back to the ribbing and re-knit it unless someone has a slick solution to fix it without having to pull out all that work.  In any event, here is a picture of the sweater so far.
I don't see the mistake in this shot, so it is probably on the other side.  So in the interest of full disclosure, imagine the pattern offset by two stitches so the cables don't line up over the ribs at the bottom edge.  One of the many things I really like about this pattern is that the sides of the sweater are in regular stockinette stitch as well as the panels between the cable sections.  I find that more appealing than the reverse stockinette that most cabled sweaters have as the background.  Reverse stockinette means lots of purling, but it also means a nubby surface that seems more likely to pill than the smoother stockinette surface.  This particular yarn is the rugged Wool of the Andes Worsted in Amethyst Heather from Knit Picks.

Blocked and ready to give...

Front view - Annis shawlette for Mom

Mom's shawlette is done and ready to give for Christmas.  This was a relatively quick knit.  I loved working with the Malabrigo yarn, beautiful color and wonderfully soft!  Way out of my price range, so I really enjoyed working with this fancy yarn.
I've done this shawlette before, and so I was familiar with the pattern.  That certainly helped me get through the nupps - which are not my favorite things to do - but the effect is very nice.  The method I use is not the knitting purist way of doing things.  The nupps on this shawlette are one stitch to seven stitches on the first row and then back to one stitch on the next row. I use a tiny latch hook, I got mine from a knitting machine supplier a long time ago.  Not entirely sure if they are still available, but it is about half the size of the standard rug making latch hooks I've seen in craft stores. The way I use it goes like this: the first row I do on the knitting needles in the normal way, knit one stitch without removing it from the left needle, go back into the stitch and do a yarn over. Repeat until the required number of loops are on the needle. Knit on in the pattern to the end of the row.  When I get back to the nupp on the next row, I slip the loops onto the latch hook and lay the working yarn in the hook, close the latch and draw it through all the loops and re-hang the yarn I drew through onto the right needle.  Then I tighten it up to match the gauge of the rest of the knitting.  Works better for me than trying to use a knitting needle or a crochet hook to capture the yarn without losing all the loops.

Back view - Annis shawlette for Mom

This shawlette has the lace done first and then short rows of stockinette to the top edge.  It is crescent shaped, and was a very different looking thing on the needles as it was being worked.  This particular piece didn't get quite as large as the pattern suggested for blocking.  The pattern suggested fifty six inches in width, I got about fifty two inches, and I blocked it out about as far as I could.  The yarn was beautiful, but it did lose some color in the wash water, but the finished piece doesn't look any lighter, so the color was probably excess dye on the fiber of the yarn.  I put it through several hot water rinses to be certain I got all the detergent out of the fiber, and to rinse out as much of the dye as would come out so that the shawlette wouldn't lose color onto any garment it would come in contact with when worn.

I do have a set of blocking mats from Knit Picks that I shot a picture of this piece on before washing so that you can see how much knitted lace changes from the needles to the shawl.


Before blocking - notice the size

This picture gives an idea of the size before blocking.  The tape measure shows about twenty eight inches, I thought I'd have plenty of space on these nice blocking squares. Not in real life though... I blocked the wet knitting out to the fifty two inches and it took my other set of squares, an alphabet play set that I bought at Walmart for about twenty bucks a few months back.  I knew I'd need them for the Shipwreck shawl I'm planning - I'm sure glad I had them for this!  Hideous colors, so I won't blind you with a photo of the lace being blocked, but they worked very well to hold the pins in the points of the lace.  I do have blocking wires, but they are not the super flexible ones, so I only used them for the ends of the lace where it is flat.  I used extra fine sewing pins for the points of the lace, being sure to catch at least two strands of yarn in each point.

Close up of lace before blocking

The process of blocking is pretty simple.  Take the wet knitting and stretch it out, using pins at all the points of the lace to pull them out and lay the knitting very flat and allow it to dry in that state.

 

The reality is a little more involved. 

 

1. Take the sloppy looking mess of knitting and soak it for a half hour in hot, soapy water remembering not to agitate it at all. 

2. Become horrified by the dark purple water under the suds.

3. Bundle up the knitting and squeeze out still more dark purple water and suds.

4. Remind myself to relax - there is still purple yarn in there.

5. Refill the bucket with more hot water and push the tiny bundle back into the water.

6. Become alarmed again by the dark purple water.

7. Repeat the hot rinse a couple more times, carefully watching to see if a white shawl will remain at the end of this process.

8. Relax a little when the color bleed slows down after the fifth rinse.

9. Take the little bundle out of the water, squeeze out most of the water and carry the tiny bundle down to the blocking board.

10. Start pinning it out after threading the two straight edge bits onto blocking wires.

11. Discover that the fancy branded knitting blocking squares are not even close to being big enough to do the job, no matter how cleverly configured.

12. Move the whole shebang to the kitchen counter and retrieve the other set of mats - the hideous bright colored alphabet set mentioned earlier.  I am NOT shooting a picture of lovely lace on those ugly things!

13. Start over, pinning the knitting out and re-pinning as it grows, and grows, and grows!  This piece more than doubled in size from the needles to the blocking.  I was amazed!

14. Wait for the thing to dry, finding somewhere else to prepare and eat my meals so I don't have to disturb what now looks very fragile, airy and light.

15. Remove a couple of pins after about 12 hours, gasp with delight that the lace holds the shape.  Then remove the rest of the pins and wires and let the knitting rest for a couple hours.

16. Prepare the dress form and shoot some pictures!

 

Even though I did this before with my first shawlette, I didn't use such fine yarn and didn't block it out as far.  I really was not prepared for the beauty and diaphanous quality of the finer yarn made into knitted lace.  I can hardly wait to begin the Shipwreck shawl.  That pattern is a very large circular shawl - almost six feet across when blocked!  Glad I had this experience first to prepare myself for that, although I love to be surprised by beauty like this.  I think Mom will be delighted with her pretty shawlette, and I hope she gets a lot of use out of it.

 

Next on the needles is a heavily cabled sweater for myself.  I'm already started on it and I'm enjoying this knit a great deal.  I like to keep one project in heavier yarn in progress for when I just want to knit something that I can really see progress on. Finer yarns are great, but the projects seem to go so much more slowly...

 

Still spinning on the singles for the Shipwreck shawl.  I've got about 600 yards of the sequined yarn and over 400 yards of the yarn without sequins.  I'm into the last ball of the Louet Northern Lights pencil roving in the Violets colorway and I've got a full bobbin of the purple recycled yarn ready for plying when I'm done with the LNL singles.  I'll probably cast on the shawl and get started on it so that I'll have some idea of how much more of the yarn I'll need of each style.  The sequins are in the netted part out toward the edge, so I expect that I'll need more of that.  The total shawl takes about 1600 yards, so I'll have plenty of knitting to do.

Through the Loop...

Finished spinning the Loop bullseye bump.  Let it rest on the bobbin overnight and then chain plied it on my Louet wheel. 

Plied "Goddess" from Loop on the Niddy Noddy

I have a system for chain plying that works well on that wheel.  I put the full bobbin of singles behind my shoulder on a ledge behind my spinning chair.  I draw off the bobbin in a straight line to the orifice of the wheel so I don't have as much snarling of the singles as I work.  To do the chain ply, I tie a loop onto the bobbin leader and put my right hand thumb and forefinger through the loop.  Then I draw a loop of singles through the loop on my right hand with my left hand forefinger and draw it out about 20-24" (I've never measured - oops!) until my left hand reaches a spot on the wall.  Then I bring the loop over to the continuous strand from the bobbin and do a counted number of treadles, in this case 13.  I do this for consistency of my plying twist - and I do count treadles, then stop the flyer and wind on the finished yarn.  Fiddly, yes, but I like the evenness I get in my yarn from all the counting.  It isn't perfect, I don't think handspun is, or at least mine never is perfect.  But I love my yarn, so it works for me.


Full view of the finished yarn on the Niddy Noddy.

This skein's vital statistics are as follows: Loop bullseye bump in the "Goddess" colorway.  I don't think this is one of the repeatable ones.  Fiber content is Merino, bamboo and tussah silk in undisclosed percentages.  At a guess, I'd say about half Merino from the way it spins up.  It became a very nice and soft yarn.  Not much sheen or springiness, probably because of the silk and bamboo.  The skein weight is 4.7 ounces or  132 grams, length is 686 yards and 24 wraps per inch before washing.  It isn't dry yet, but it doesn't seem to have much spring to it, so I don't think there will be much change in this skein as it dries.



Full view of the "Goddess" skein

I washed the skein in hot water with a small squeeze of Dawn Olay Hand Renewal dish liquid in the Lavender scent.  I was really hoping for some color bleed to tone down the bright green, but that didn't happen.  I may still split off the colors later on, but I'm currently considering a round yoke sweater using this yarn for the colorwork portion.  If I break up the colors, I could overdye that green with something else to tone it down - maybe a peacock blue or a darker green, just to knock the intensity down a notch.  Another option would be to plan the colorwork specifically to break up the stitches to small "pops" of the green.  The quilters call that kind of oddball color a "poison color" that is needed to energize the color scheme of a project.  In a colorwork yoke, I'm thinking of doing something floral... maybe iris or violets... or maybe something abstract, I haven't decided. The grist of 24 wraps per inch makes it a fingering weight yarn, so I do have plenty of options.  Many suppliers make a grand array of colors in this yarn weight.

Close up of the "Goddess" skein - color is more accurate in the full skein photo.
 

This seems to be my default yarn.  It is what I naturally seem to spin.  Unless the fiber wants to be something else - but then I have to pay closer attention to maintain some other grist.  But I do make the attempt, especially with the superfine wools I've been sampling lately.  Speaking of that, I'll show you what I've been sampling in the last few weeks.

This particular sample is also from the Loop Fiber Studio and it came in the box along with the Goddess bump as a gift.  It is a sample of Steph's Spontaneous Spinning Clouds.  The fiber is carded but not aligned in a batt or top.  This little bit had white and a pale pink fiber with a smidgen of sparkle fiber that appears to be Angelina.  No fiber notations were made so I can only speculate what might be in this yarn.

It is pretty stuff, a 5 gram sample, and I got 20 yards of chain plied soft yarn with a pale golden glimmer that is quite appealing.  Only enough for a little accent on a knitted piece, but scrumptious enough to be worth it.

Also in progress is some of the Grand Champion Targhee fleece that I purchased at the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival last month.  I chose some of the fleece near one edge and did some lock washing on it.  Then I flick carded and spindle spun some of it quite fine.  Chain plied on the spindle - because the Louet pulls too hard to ply a super fine yarn, it breaks the singles.  We have an understanding now, and there is much less frustration.  There are some things a Louet S-10 does marvellously well, but fine yarn isn't one of them.


Grand Champion Targhee fleece, yarn sample

Statistics on this sample are thusly: spindle spun singles clockwise, spindle chain plied counter clockwise.  Before washing, it measured 28 wraps per inch and 13 yards.  After washing the sample is 27 wraps per inch and 12 yards in length. Pretty springy yarn, not quite as much as the super fine Corriedale that I prepared with the same method.  This is a very pleasant yarn, still in the fingering weight range, even though it feels finer. It will be a great pleasure to work through this lovely fleece!

Gone Loopy...

Spinning is one of my favorite things to do.  Takes me to a wonderful, peaceful place with very few distractions. Of course, it also helps that I'm doing it in the middle of the night!  Even so, there is something creative and tranquil about the feel of prepared fiber slipping through my fingers on the way to the spindle or wheel.  Currently I'm working on a bump of fiber from a online shop called Loop.  This is the photo from the advertisement:

It is called "Goddess" and it is made up of Merino wool, bamboo and tussah silk.  It is spinning up well, although not especially quickly since it wants to be pretty fine singles.  Most people chain ply these bumps, and for a while I was thinking of doing the same thing.  I'm into the bright green part right now and I'm not crazy about the contrast with the other colors, so I'm considering removing the bright green and spinning it into a separate yarn.

Here's a shot of the bump after I started spinning the olive green section at the center of the bump. 

One of the interesting things about these bumps is that the fiber pulls from the center.  Most of the fiber I work with isn't put up this way, so it has been a new experience for me to spin from this kind of preparation.  One thing that is going to be nice is that I'll have a bit of time to decide how to handle that bright green, and it will already be in the spun singles form.  The blue is also quite bright, but it doesn't bother me as much.  An option I've considered is to use a neutral ply to tone down the brilliant intensity of the bright green.  I will keep on spinning the singles while I think this over.  I'd welcome any opinions on this quandry, please use the comments section to contribute your thoughts.  There are 4.6 ounces of this fiber, so in a chain ply, I'd probably end up with about 500-600 yards or so of a three ply in approximately fingering weight yarn.  If I do a neutral ply I'd have about twice that.

Here is a shot of the bobbin with the singles in progress:

As I've worked with this fiber, I've thought about making my own interesting color combinations, but doing up the colors as separate small batts from my drum carder.  Perhaps blending a small bit of the colors so that the progression is smoother between the colors.

But that is an experiment for another day.... I remember how long the color study took me to finish!

So Fine!

Back to spinning... on some super fine Corriedale (yes, really!)
I called my favorite local shepherd (www.frenecreekfarm.com) a little while back and asked about some really fine gray fleece.  She had two on hand, both Corriedale.  I was skeptical, but I went out anyway, since she's never steered me wrong and she has lots of fleece on hand all the time.
I truly couldn't believe what I saw...

This is one of the two fleeces that I bought.  Both Corriedale and both very, very fine wool with abundant crimp.  Also very greasy fleeces, as most fine wools are, so the washing was a bit of an adventure.

I pulled off a small part of one of the fleeces and washed it the normal way I do fleeces.  After it was dry, it still felt sticky, so it got another bath.  Then I put it on the drum carder - mind you, I have a fine fur drum on my carder - and I got a batt full of noils.  

Back to the drawing board...

I took the pitiful, noiled batt and combed some of it to see what would happen.  The resulting nest of fiber is shown above.  Still some waste, but not a total loss as the batt would have been.  I did spin a couple of the nests of combed fiber and they were very nice to spin and quite fine and pleasing singles.

Then I said to myself, "Self, this fiber needs different preparation to be it's very best".  So I set about learning to deal with superfine wools.  Checked some books out of the library, read them, spent a little time in denial and then decided to try lock washing.  I shudder in the face of this kind of fiddly prep just to get the wool clean!  But, armed with a roll of tulle I sewed up the little bags to hold the locks of wool.

After the tulle bags were ready, I went back out to the garage to commune with my fleece.  Took it out of the plastic bag and unrolled it.  Took off some skirting bits that I didn't want to deal with for this kind of process and brought in about 600 grams to attempt my experiment with lock washing.  There is still about half of the fleece in the bag, just in case I want to experiment further.  I also have the other fleece, so there is plenty of wool for me to fiddle with.  I took pictures of the process for my friends over on the Knit Picks Community and I'll share them with you here too.

Here's the setup: nine nursery plant flats and one large tub big enough to hold them all and allow a bit of sloshing around space.  This shot shows the tulle bags with the raw locks stitched inside, in the nusery flat and ready to go into the water.

I stacked up eight flats like this and put an empty one on top to keep everything together and pushed the whole mess down into the soapy water - held it down for a minute or so and brought it up out of the water, and then pushed it down again.

At that point it looked like this and the water was positively filthy... like the first wash on the uncontained fleece the way I usually do my wool washing.

So then I did another wash, and several rinses using this same process, but separating the trays and using the empty tray on top of each one after the first wash.  This was to help each batch of locks get cleaner - at least that is what I hoped would happen!

After all that was done, I took the bags and laid them out on a screen to dry.  I used my mini trampoline for this - put up on sawhorses for good airflow and turned on the ceiling fan to circulate the air around the fleece.  I wasn't sure how much the bags would slow the process, since I usually am able to pull the locks apart as they dry and that can't happen in lock washing.

Here's a shot of the bags drying on the screen.  Nice clear gray, and the dirty tips will come off when I flick card them prior to spinning.  It took a couple days for the bags to be fully dry.  I opened one and flick carded the locks.  I used a small pin brush made for brushing dogs - the kind that looks like fine carding cloth - often called a slicker brush.  Flick carding is a process I hadn't used before.  Grab one end of the lock and brush out the other end with the dog brush until it is nice and fluffy and straight.  Then turn the lock around and do the same thing on the other end.  Remember not to card the fingertips!  It smarts!  I also dug out my old horse shoeing chaps to cover my legs while I did this.  It worked great since it is nice thick leather and I could really get a good push with the brush against the leather.  The flicking pulls out all the tender tip wool and gets out all the vegetable matter in the wool as well.  Very nice preparation and it leaves me with little tufts of fiber that is all lined up in the lock formation and ready to spin.  I started spinning from this preparation - super fine singles and pretty trouble free spinning.  Here's what it looked like after I had a bit of this spun up.

The locks are in front.  Different colors, yes, but I didn't sort for color on this batch of singles.  I wanted to have some variation in the finished yarn.  So I spun the locks as they came up, and there is some variegation in ths singles as you can see.  The singles are super fine, and much stronger than I would have imagined.  I did a chain ply on this bobbin of singles and ended up with 130 yards of chain plied yarn.  I noticed that the yarn was very springy and elastic as it went into its first bath.  As a note, I wind my skeins on a two yard niddy noddy, which I tie in at least four places to keep the yarn organized and easy to untangle after washing.  This means a skein hangs in about a 36" loop when it comes off the niddy noddy.  This skein had a lot of bounce to it, and I expected it to pull up some, but when it was dry it hung in a 24" loop!  I've never had such bouncy yarn!

I re-wound the skein after it dried, since some of the strands were somewhat wayward in the first skein up.  The new skein came out at 120 yards and still has an incredible bounce and springy quality that I've never had in handspun before.  I've got a couple skeins of commercially spun Merino yarn that have a similar feel.  I can't help but wonder if it is the fine wool, the crimp, or the lock spinning that causes this quality in the finished yarn.  Time to do more research into this... in the meantime, I'm enjoying this cottony, next to the skin soft wool that I've made.  Next big decision is what I'll make with it.  Since I have plenty more of this fleece and another fleece that is very similar, there will be much more of this yarn available to me.  Besides - I still have several of the tulle bags left to flick and spin....

Spinning in progress...

Busy, busy, busy and always more to do.  But this is what I've been working on.  I showed you the Cormo I was spinning in my last post.  I've spun up about half of what I have on hand and have this pretty little skein to show for it.

The next thing I've been working on is a pretty good sized quantity of batts that I had made of some of the pink Romney from way back when.  I blended it with some great light gray Corriedale from a ewe named Sierra from my favorite shepherd in Colorado.  I also decided to blend in a little bit of white icicle to add some sparkle to the yarn.  My original plan was to knit up a ruffled scarf that I found in Spin Off some time ago.  An odd thing happened as I worked with this blend.  The Corriedale was a little "sticky" to work with. I had washed it quite a while before I actually did anything with it, so it "rested" in that state. Since the blending was already finished, I went ahead and spun it up the way it was.  But I also decided to re-wash some of the fleece that hadn't been used in the blended batts.  Much, much better... feels clean and pleasant again.  I had no idea such a thing could happen with fleece as it sits waiting its turn in my stash.  I'll definitely chalk this up as a learning experience!  I doubt that I could spin a fleece "in the grease" since I found a little stickyness so icky to work with.

Here's a shot of the singles on the spindle and the bobbin that I load the singles onto as they accumulate.  This way I don't end up with a bunch of tiny skeins.

I still have a little more to finish up but I am on the last batt now.  The sparkle of the icicle doesn't really show up on the pictures - most sparkle fibers seem to be pretty camera shy.  I wonder sometimes how people get shots of Angelina that show the multicolor glittery effect.

I made another neat discovery.  There is a virtual knitting/spinning guild of sorts over on the Knit Picks website.  I've just joined up... it should be interesting to see what I find over there.

Until next time....



Sweater done, spinning in progress...

I love the feeling of finishing things... got a few more done this week. The never-ending sweater is finally knitted. Took a picture of it before blocking:

I like the way it turned out, but there are a couple of things I still want to do before I wear it.  Blocking would be the first thing, and I have given it the first warm bath of its life.  At the moment it is drying on a screen.  Never ceases to amaze me how the stitches smooth out after blocking.  Didn't need any wires in this one, just laid it out flat.  Second thing I'll be doing is adding a band of ribbon to the back of the button bands.  The knitting is wonderfully soft, but it isn't likely to support buttonholes and buttons without sagging.  So rather than wait for that to happen, I'll be putting the ribbon on to stabilize it.

I've also been finishing up some spinning that has been hanging around for a while. Here is a small skein of Amethyst Heather merino from Ashland Bay.  It started as one of the lovely striped tops that they are so famous for.  I just got a tiny sample (this skein is 9 grams) so that I could check the colors.  I'm pleased with this colorway, it "reads" visually as purple, but it is made up of blues, reds, pinks and grays.  Very nice indeed - I'll be ordering up more of this one. Statistics: 32 yards, 9 grams; Amethyst Heather merino top from Ashland Bay; spindle spun singles clockwise, Navajo plied counterclockwise 15 treadles.

This one has been hanging out on a spindle for who knows how long.  I took it off the spindle onto a bobbin and Navajo plied it to this gorgeous yarn.  It is a black Shetland wool blended with dyed mohair locks in blue and fuschia.  I really didn't expect Shetland wool to be so soft.  Love the sparkle and shine of the mohair.  I'll certainly be doing more of this blend in the future!  Statistics: 92 yards, 31 grams; Shetland/Mohair; spindle spun singles clockwise, Navajo plied counterclockwise 14 treadles.

This brute of a skein is the beginning of a sweater project from the color study yarns.  This is the 50/50 blend of GNR and Dolly Dorset.  Love the heathering and the color.  This isn't the softest wool, so it will definitely be outerwear.  Haven't worn much green lately, but it is a good color for me and I'll enjoy working with my handspun on a larger project.  Statistics: 270 yards, 74 grams; 50/50 GNR/Dolly; spindle spun singles clockwise, Navajo plied counterclockwise 14 treadles.

Meet Dusty...

Dusty - Corriedale

Ahhh, nothing like the joy of a freshly washed fleece!  This is from Dusty, a covered Corridale fleece from my favorite shepherd in Colorado.  I have a number of fleeces from this flock. I was pleased by the color and couldn't wait to start spinning, so I grabbed my hand cards and made a couple rolags.  Dusty's fleece is very fine and has a nice sprinkling of silver fibers mixed in that sparkle in the very fine singles I'm spinning. No idea what I'll do with this yet, just sampling a bit for now.  Plenty of wool for several projects here - the raw fleece was 6.75 pounds.  I'll post pictures as soon as I get a little skein of the yarn done.

Frene Creek Farm roving in process

Also in the works... this pretty handpainted roving from Frene Creek Farm.  Originally, I thought I'd blend it with a couple plies of purple merino, but as it is spinning up, I think I'll do a pale gray instead.  I've got some very soft Rambouillet/Finn that will be just the ticket.  I'm about halfway through the 4 ounces of roving.  This is such pretty wool that I am always disappointed when I have to stop spinning for a while.

Stashdown update...

100% GNR at top, 75% GNR 25% DD at bottom

Two down, three to go.  Here's a shot of the first two skeins in the color study.

I really like this heathered yarn. The DD tones down the brilliance of the green just enough.  Very pleasant tweedy yarn.  The colors didn't blend perfectly and I rather like that feature.  Probably a function of the different staple lengths more than anything.  The GNR is probably about one and a half to twice the length of the DD. Spun well, washed and air dried. The DD didn't really fuzz out much in this blend. I'm expecting more "bounce" as the percentage of DD increases.

Vital statistics of the 75% GNR 25% DD:
100% Wool.  75% Green Nasty Romney, 25% Dolly Dorset.  Batts carded three times to blend colors.  Singles spun clockwise, Navajo plied counterclockwise.  80 yards, 1 ounce skein.

Next up: 50% GNR 50% DD.

Progress Report...

Busy week... had a birthday and celebrated by contributing to my stash.  I'll shoot photos of that for next time.  But for now, here's what is happening with the LNL and Dolly yarn for the Stashdown.

This shot shows how much (OMG!) LNL is still left on the bobbin and a few of the many batts I'm still spinning to finish up the plied yarn I'm making.  Did a couple small skeins of the "magpie" yarn to use as an accent and there is the swatch again so you can see the whole picture.  I've got about two half bobbins done of the Dolly singles, and I'll ply those tonight for another skein.

One thing about this stashdown - I sure picked a whopper of a target for this goal!  I'm looking at March with a more sensible eye now... I need to remember that I'm still working full time and that the weather is warming up.  Pen orders are starting to come in now too, and I'm thinking about some other turned things that I want to get rolling on - like spindles, small bowls and maybe some other surprises!

Off to spin again!