More than one way to skin a skein

I’ve started working on a post over the last couple of weeks but just haven’t been able to get everything together at one time.

I’m not going to go through the new hats but here’s a picture of the collection.  I gave away the alpaca fair isle one to a friend but I’ve got plenty more where that came from so I think there is one more hat in my future but for the most part I think it’s over.  For now.  Except the one I’ve got going to match the scarf I made with the last of the Kickapoo Creek silk/merino/alpaca.  That’s all.   I think.

I had a great time once again at the Bishophill Spin-In.  There were some unexpected surprises and some intoxicating fibers.  The 2 big surprises (no, make that 3) came from a stall run by a couple who were disposing of an estate that comprised 7 storage lockers of crafting treasures.  From them I obtained some very rare and exciting bobbin lace books (scoooore!), a Schacht warping board (20 yard warping board that probably cost over $200 for $35) and a bobbin lace bobbin winder (that usually costs more than $100 for $30). 

Wasn’t expecting those at all.  I’d been pricing warping boards because the only one I have is a small one on the back of my rigid heddle loom.  Problem is if I have that loom warped (which I do), I can’t use the warping board.  

But, on to the fiber, which is the whole reason for going there.  I’ll tell you more about the fleece I got another time but I also got the most beautiful roving from a local farm.  The sheep is Blue-faced Leicester.  It is the best prepared roving I’ve ever had.  It’s from Floya’s Fleece (sorry, no website link can I find).  She’s from Chana, IL, and her fiber is fabulous.  I got a mixture of white, med brown and dark brown and I’m going to do something special with it. I’m just itching to spin it but I don’t want to be rushed with other things.  I want to just enjoy the process.

I also got a fiber mixture from Fae Ridge Farm which I wasn’t at all convinced I really wanted but I have a very pushy friend.  Never go shopping with Mary if you don’t have an iron will.  I’m just saying.  Anyway, I’ve lost the tag that gives all the fibers mixed for this roving but I just wasn’t convinced except I really liked the colors.  Definitely not love at first sight but the second I started spinning, I started getting courted.  Then I plied and got wooed.  And then I washed and I was hooked.

It was in a cloud preparation, which I 'm particularly fond of, and I’ve spun it to a 3-ply almost worsted weight.  So far I have about 200 yards with probably another 100 to go and, although the intention was to spin a sock yarn, I’m not sure that’s what this lovely stuff wants to be.  It’s predominantly Border Leicester so it’s not totally soft (although it’s really pretty wonderful) and it’s a little chunkier than I would normally have for socks…we’ll have to see.

But the thing I look forward to every year is the dyed silk hankies from Lone Tree Wools.  I get them every year and every year they’re the first thing I spin and I can’t wait until the next year to get more.

You know I love to spin hankies.  I spin them corner to corner and have posted a video to show how I do it (in case you’re interested).  But I’ve discovered that it doesn’t do very well as a 2-ply yarn.  I really like it to have 3 plies – gives it a bit of structure.  I’ve had this discussion with several friends lately and seem to have some support on this but I’ve never looked up the discussions on Ravelry to see what the wider opinion is.  I don’t guess it really matters, it’s my yarn and I’ll make it like it want to.

But this brings us to a dilemma that every spinner faces from time to time.  How many plies?  After you’ve spent all this time spinning the singles, do you go for the yardage or do you go for the perfect yarn?  Of course, with every ply you add, you decrease your yardage by a significant amount.  Having the perfect yarn, though…

So I decided on a 3-ply but I didn’t want to do a Navajo ply with this because silk doesn’t absorb that little bump you get at the end of each chain like wool can.  I tried to guestimate* how much to spin onto each bobbin and got pretty close on the first 2 but the third bobbin was a lot more.  Coulda, woulda, shoulda.  It just was.

I tried to figure out how best to do it so that I could spin a true 3-ply off of my 3 uneven bobbins and here’s what I came up with.

I had 2 pretty even bobbins so I left the singles on those bobbins.

Then I wound the 3^rd bobbin into a ball.

To begin with, I spun with the inside and outside ends of the ball along with one of the bobbins – 3 strands.  I continued that until I realized I was going to run out of the ball then I started using 1 strand from the ball with strands from each of the bobbins.  I did that until the ball ran out.  At that point, I was close to the end but I had about twice as much on one bobbin as I had on the other.  So I wound the long bobbin strand on my hand and Andean plied the hand strand with the remaining bobbin strand until I was finished.  

It worked out beautifully.  Once the strand on my hand was finished, I had about 4 inches on the remaining bobbin.  Pretty darn close.  Can’t wait to wind this off and get it washed!

The moral of the story is there’s more than one way to get a 3 ply yarn.

* Just a little note to say that an organized spinner would have separated her fiber out before she started spinning so that all 3 bobbins were even to begin with.  I had my reasons.

My Epiphany Weekend

I was going to say this weekend’s spinning workshop was a revelation but it was really more of an epiphany. It was good, solid, basic spinning stuff. You’ve got to have the basics to go farther faster (and have fewer frustrations!).

I have been spinning for a number of years, as I’ve said, but what knowledge I had was so basic it wasn’t even basic, as I’m now discovering. Well, discovering. I really knew it but just hadn’t had the opportunity to do anything about it.

I was amazed that things I had read in spinning articles or spinning books that would have made my eyes glaze over because they meant as much to me as this: Я ничего не знаю о прядения шерсти.

I know what language it is but couldn’t save my life with it.

Last night when I got home, I picked up the handy little Interweave press spiral booklet about spinning – one of those everything your wanted to know, etc.-type books – and…wait for it…understood it! I still get woolen vs worsted mixed up but even that was helped by Barb Brown equating worsted with a worsted men’s suit. Strong, long, smooth wool to make up a sturdy material. That stuck, Barb! Thanks!

I learned to Andean ply, a long-term mystery that I can now see why people suggest it to ply singles from a drop spindle. Epiphany.

I learned why twists per inch and understanding crimp structure is important to creating an optimum yarn for whatever wool type you’re spinning.

I learned how a walking wheel, or great wheel, works. Not that I had any success with it but they assure me that’s because the wool we were using had too much lanolin in it and it wasn’t drafting properly.

In learning about the walking wheel, I also learned the principle behind how the charkha works (same sort of spindle). Very cool but still a little intimidating.

I learned why it’s good for the singles to be slightly overspun and why some of my yarn looked almost unplied after I underspun the ply and then set the twist (both relax the yarn).

I learned how to tell if I’ve got too much twist in my ply or not enough (look at direction of twist in a hank of yarn – if it hangs with no twist, it’s balanced; if it hangs with a ‘z’ twist – depending on direction of ply – tells you whether you’ve over or under twisted the ply.) I didn’t know that and that’s a good thing to know.

I learned how to figure out how much handspun you’re going to need for a project. That’s a useful piece of information worth the price of admission alone! Can’t tell you how often I’ve had that question asked of me. Now I don’t have to just shrug my shoulders and say I just guess.

Can you see where I’m going here? A roomful of smart spinners sharing tales and war stories. Nothing like it.