Monday, April 9, 2012

I got my Polypay singles plied, 2 for the lace weight and 3 for the heavier singles.  I was really curious how they would look after washing because I'd been sort of experimenting with the fiber prep.  For a true woolen yarn, which this fiber certainly suits being all crimpy and bouncy like it is, would generally call for a carded preparation.  I think I've already explained why I decided to go the combing route but I also used a very light hand on the drafting so I could keep as much of that bounce as possible. 
You can see from this close up (I hope) how much air is in the skein on the left.  That was the 2 ply thinner yarn.  The other skein was spun 3 ply and has a lot more twist in so it's a little harder to see and the skein has much less bounce in it.
The other thing you can see is that the lighter, less tightly twisted yarn is much whiter than the other.  The locks were well washed before spinning but when I washed the skeins, there was a lot of lanolin that came off them.  I'm guessing the difference in color is because the lighter spun skein was able to release the lanolin more readily.  I'm not at all bothered about the other skein because I will be dying it and I don't mind having some lanolin retained in the yarn since it will be used for socks.
Here are my 2 happy little skeins of Polypay.  As a show of how much bounce the lace skein has, the before washing measurement was about 166 yards.  After washing, that measurement is about 130 yards.  All of that was taken up by the re-activated crimp and the yarn has so much bounce, you could bungee jump with it.  No, really.  Want to try?

So now I need to think of something very Kentucky to make with it to make the circle complete!