Cloudy Days and Fancy Footwork

A few months ago I decided to acquire a new spinning wheel.  This was a big decision, because it’s not as simple as buying smaller tools like knitting needles.  Wheels are a major investment.  And…I was worried about the antique wheel gathering dust if I brought a shiny new wheel into the house.

I went to a local yarn shop that also sells spinning wheels and fiber so that I could try out a few options.  And really, I also went to see if my spinning woes were “user error” or a wheel/task misfit.  I discovered that Penelope (the antique wheel) is great for spinning big fluffy singles, but terrible at spinning finer singles.  The Lendrum Double Treadle Folding Wheel I tried out spun beautiful fine and midweight singles without any effort, and I fell in love.  Knowing that a good friend absolutely loves her Lendrum sealed the deal and I brought one home.

Since then I’ve been happily spinning away – during episodes of several TV series, football games, and (coming soon!) baseball games.  The singles flow on this wheel wonderfully, and the plied yarn is yummy and exactly as imagined.  So far, I think I’ve tried every speed setting.  I’ve even had to deliberately slow down my treadling at one point in order to get the result I wanted.  She’s just so speedy and smooth and graceful!  I think I’m naming her Josephine.

First up on the new wheel was a Malabrigo Nube roving dyed in shades of purple and magenta.  My goal was to end up with a fingering weight 3-ply yarn.

IMG_20141023_150030_clr_smDespite the pills and felted sections in the fiber supply (So frustrating; this is a commercial product!), I felt like I was getting a pretty consistent singles that matched the singles thickness in the commercial yarn I had deconstructed to use as a gauge example.

IMG_20141023_145916_clr_smThe finished yarn didn’t bloom quite as much as expected, so I ended up with a 3-ply lace weight yarn instead.  No wonder the spinning felt like it was taking forever!  The final count is ~600 yards at 18 wraps per inch between two skeins that I can use for a single project.  A third, smaller skein of ~130 yards was chain plied as an experiment to see how the different plying techniques changed the coloration in the yarn.  I think I should chain ply an entire project at some point, even though I find it a tad on the fussy side to execute.

IMG_20150218_110521_clr_smAfter spinning such a fine project, I felt like I needed to work on something on the thicker side.  I hear that other spinners have difficulty spinning thicker singles after getting used to spinning fine yarns, and I don’t want to fall into that pothole.  I visited the fiber stash for some inspiration.  (Of course there is a fiber stash!  You didn’t think I’d be unprepared, did you?)  There are several examples of lovely fiber goodness there, but I decided to spin in the order of acquisition so that nothing sits around in the stash too long.

Next up then was an indie-dyed braid of Merino in tones of grey.  Kind of like the cloudy Seattle sky in winter.  Just my thing.  This time I tried to go about it even more logically.  Not just thinking about gauge, but color progression in the singles and the finished yarn.  I unraveled the braid and laid the roving out on the floor to see how the colors moved along the fiber – mixed or separate, long or short, random or patterned, etc.  It appeared that the dyer had painted the two halves of the length at the same time, with each color moving into the next.  I decided to break the roving at the halfway point.  The plan was to spin a 2-ply aiming for DK weight, and reverse the color direction between the two singles.

IMG_20150218_110238_clr_smI absolutely love the way the color progressed along these singles!  The yarn started at a white with a smidge of grey, gradually became a dark charcoal grey, then lightened back to almost white again.  I was so fascinated with the color changes that I spun the entire first bobbin in one evening.  I just couldn’t stop!

IMG_20150218_110131_clr_smOnce the first bobbin was finished and I saw how the color changes were working, I decided to spin the second bobbin in the same color direction rather than reversing the color direction.  Reversing the color direction would have hopefully matched up a lighter color with a darker color when the singles were plied together, resulting in more of a barber pole effect.  Working the color in the same direction would hopefully match up the color progressions more exactly, resulting in more of a “grey scale” look to the finished yarn.  Fingers crossed (figuratively), I spun the second bobbin then plied the two singles together.

IMG_20150222_142638_clr_smThe result is a fluffy, soft DK weight yarn with ~400 yards at 11 wraps per inch.  The colors marry quite nicely in places and barber pole in others, so I actually ended up with both options.  Happy accident!  It’s really a result of my spinning inexperience – the two bobbins were not spun exactly the same, so the lengths of each color were different between the two singles.  This is what makes handspun wonderful.

For the Spinners/Knitters:

  • Fiber: 100% Merino by Malabrigo Nube, colorway #136 Sabiduria
  • Ravelry handspun project page here
  • Fiber: 100% Merino by Shadawyn Fiber Arts, colorway Moonlit Garden #3
  • Ravelry handspun project page here

What’s next?  A lovely braid of Masham wool hand dyed in cheery blues.

IMG_20141019_161604_clr_sm

This entry was posted in Spinning and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Comments are closed.