Tag: handspinning

Dear Reader, I need help.

I’m at a standstill with a colour decision and I would value your opinion.

Early in 2020 I started spinning up this braid from Deep Dyed Yarns (80/20 Merino/Silk, the colourway is unnamed) that I got in a swap in 2019. I let it sit, partially spun, for over a year before I came back to it.

I had received this braid in a swap in 2018, but had not decided what to do with it. The braid is SuperWash BFL from Two if by Hand in the Public Market colourway.

Several years ago I read an article in Ply Magazine about combining different colourways when spinning and thus creating different, more interesting outcomes through the interplay of colour in the final yarn. This idea grabbed hold of me, and I have been trying to use it ever since (here and here), but my experiments have been mostly combining a single solid colour with a coordinating multi-colour braid. With the idea of combining colourways in the back of my mind, I started to consider what a pairing of these two braids would look like. To me the colours seem like bolder and paler versions of each other: one braid is Mardi Gras, the other is almost pastel. So I spun up the Mardi Gras braid, with plans to ply the two together.

I had always planned to include a third ply in white or light grey to soften the Mardi Gras colours and help tie them into the pastels. I have a package of light grey wool that is similar to the light grey in the Deep Dyed colourway, but a little more brown. I also have a skein of cream mohair yarn (laceweight) that could give a beautiful halo to the final yarn as well as diffusing and blending the bold colours.

I was pretty set on this course of action, when I received a braid of the same colourway (but a 60/40 Organic Polwarth/Mulberry Silk base) in a swap just a few weeks ago! This opens up the possibility of having two plies of the Deep Dyed colourway with one ply of the Mardi Gras, and I love the continuity of using this third swapped braid.

Now that my original two braids are spun up I am losing my nerve. Some days I think they will be brilliant together, some days I think the combination is horrid. And now I have too many options. Reader, I need your help: which do you think is the best option?

  • Go with the original plan: Mardi Gras, Pastels, Grey
  • Go with the original plan: Mardi Gras, Pastels, Mohair
  • Spin the new braid up and ply with the original two braids
  • Create two or more individual yarns: 1 ply of Deep Dyed with 1 ply of Grey; 1 ply of Mardi Gras with 1 ply of Mohair
  • Something else entirely – what brilliant ideas do you have?

Spin Together

Early this month my spinning group joined a friendly competition called Spin Together. The goal was to spin throughout the week. Some people are very competetive about these things and spend gobs of time to spin loads of yarn. I was not in a situation where I could do that (even though I am a very competetive person), so I took a more laid back approach. My goal was to spin every day and to finish some projects I had started.

I spun 5 out of the 7 days, so I didn’t quite meet my goal to spin every day. But I did finish 2 projects, and ended up with some very lovely yarn.

The first project was a handful of Jacob rolags. Deb from Merciful Hearts Farm is part of our spinning group, and she generously shared some sample fleeces with the group. Jacob is a peculiar breed: their fleeces are mottled and splotched with different colours. I had never worked with Jacob or with unwashed wool before this spin. I separated the locks by colour and carded them up into rolags.

I spun the rolags in colour order from darkest to lightest. In order to preserve the colour order in the finished yarn I chain-plied it. I have a hard time getting enough twist in my woolen singles, so they quite often break. To combat this, I started the plying stage with a simple prep step: I chained the singles around a book without adding twist. This allowed me to control the chain length and twist better, and my handling of the delicate singles was much more careful.

You can see that I used my newest toy to spin this sample: it’s the Electric Eel Wheel Nano. The Nano did a great job spinning the yarn, but the fuzzy wool caught on the yarn guides quite frequently. Also, when plying after the bobbin was about halfway filled it stopped wanting to wind on. I will need to play with the Nano more to see how these issues can be worked out.

My second Spin Together project was a skein I started back in April. I used my Majacraft Pioneer for this spin. The fiber was a blend of Targhee, Rambouillet, and Columbia wools from Apothefaery Fibers that I bought at SAFF last year. The colours reminded me of fire and of a clear Autumn morning.

I had spun the singles quite fine, and plied them end to end with a lot of extra twist. This took me about 2 months, then I went to Manila, and didn’t return to my project for over 4 months. My goal was to make a crepe yarn, so at this point I was about 2/3 of the way through the project. In late September I started spinning another singles, this time in an undyed BFL/silk blend. During the week of Spin together I finished spinning these singles, and plied the singles with the 2-ply to finish the crepe.

I knew I was pushing the boundaries of how much yarn my bobbin would hold. The original 2-ply was 4 oz, and the crepe ply was at least another 2 oz (most bobbins hold 4oz or less). In the end the yarn was finished in a very dramatic way. I had gone to our spinning group meetup, and was plying away, hoping against hope that the yarn would all fit. I got to the very end of the bobbin, and my wheel wouldn’t wind any more on. So I enlisted some help: I treadled while another friend walked the plying yarn out behind me, and another friend watched to make sure the yarn didn’t come off my bobbin and get wrapped around the drive shaft!

We worked together to finish this yarn, it all miraculously fit on the bobbin, and I was rewarded with 580 yds of a beautiful sport-weight crepe yarn. Just look at it!

If you need me in the future, I will be spinning all the crepe yarn. I love the roundness of the yarn and the very visible, unusual construction.

Sampling

It’s been quite a while since SAFF, but I’m still working through my class fiber samples. Here are a few yarns I’ve recently finished.

My most recent spin was a BFL/silk blend top in a purple to pink ombre. You can see it on the bottom left in the picture above. I had planned to spin it as a thick singles, but alas, my singles were thin (I need to work on that). So I changed course and chain plied the yarn to keep the colour order intact.

I didn’t add a lot of twist to the singles, and I’m delighted with how fluffy and soft this yarn is!

I also have a pair of yarns I’ve been spinning for quite a while now. In the topmost picture they are the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th samples from the top (these are also BFL/silk blends).

I spun the 2 samples with purple in them (2nd and 3rd from the top) separately, and then plied them with extra twist.

Then I spun my 3rd sample (4th from the top) in the same direction I had plied the previous yarn in and plied the yarns together again to create a crepe yarn.

I ended up with sister skeins. The 2-ply is a fingering weight, and the crepe is a DK weight.

I’m almost done spinning through my class samples. I’ll have to take a picture of them all together when I’m finished. Then it will be time to find the perfect project(s) for them. I can’t wait!