White on White Start

I mentioned before that I'd started the spinning for my white on white project.  I've finally got the first step accomplished:

 Here's a little closer look at the yarn:

I have been trying to remember what the fibers were that I bought in Santa Fe.  This was one and it's definitely got silk in it and I think it's angora and silk.  The other one, I think, was cashmere and silk.  I just got 1 ounce of each but got 250 yards of lace weight out of this ounce.  To put the lace weight label in perspective, this fiber spun in this way would give 4,000 yards of yarn from 1 pound of fiber.  Of course, a pound of this fiber would cost in the neighborhood of about $100 so I'll just settle for my ounce!

This was spun on my Fricke wheel using the highest ratio.  It was spun z twist for the singles and s for the plying.  I was reminded again how you really need more twist than you think you're going to need when you're spinning this finely.  I was fine with the singles, got sufficient twist with no problem.  But I had to adjust my treadling when I was plying because I was definitely not getting enough twist into it.  I was a little concerned, in fact, that I would have to feed it through again to get a little more twist in.  I think it worked out fine in the end but a little more twist wouldn't have hurt anything.

The fiber came in a pretty thick strand of roving.  I found that it went much more smoothly to predraft a little bit at a time as I went.  On a softness scale of 1-10, I would say this is about a 9 and on the elegance scale, it's a 10, no doubt.