3 posts tagged “oddball”

I'm now just over halfway through spinning the singles for the warp of the redleaf wrap - the picture is the first batch of singles and the fibre for the second batch, both about 100g; the yarn is very fine worsted, and from some guesses at its weight I'm hoping that 200g of two-ply will be enough. If not, I have plenty more of the fibre so will just spin some more to make up the shortfall. It's really boring spinning, so it's useful to have a deadline to aim for - next weekend I have a crafting date with S, B and G, and I'm hoping to have finished spinning all the yarn for the wrap, and have warped up the loom before then so I can take weaving with me, and let the others play with the wheel while I show off the loom :-)

I estimate that it took me about 10 hours to spin the first 100g, so it should be possible to finish up, especially since R is away for part of this week, so I won't have to choose between spinning and hanging out with him!

This has made me think seriously about ordering the lace flyer kit for the wheel, because it's slower going than it should be simply because I can't treadle fast enough - smaller whorls would make that much easier. And I think I will be spinning more very fine yarn... The picture to the left is a tiny piece of a lovely eight-ply double-cabled yarn I spun just now from a wisp of leftover purple merino, to add to the current handspun-oddball-in-progress. I spun it on a spindle as very fine singles, and then plied it twice, and it's gorgeous.

The redleaf sampling left me with some bits and pieces of leftovers of the yarn I used in it, which has reminded me of the current handspun oddball (left). That's redleaf-plied-with-burgundy over most of its surface, and the bit of purple yarn from above with the free end. And in between the strands of red, you can catch glimpses of some of the other layers hidden below. I've no idea now what's in it, and am looking forward to winding it into a skein to find out...

...And the fact that this oddball is almost ready to be wound into a skein to join the others reminded me of my bags of leftover bits of fibre (right). The big pile of pink in the top left is an early attempt at hand-carding leftovers. It's a bit of a mess, though, so I'll probably put it through the drum carder to tidy it up a bit, and then maybe there's enough of it to do something with, perhaps especially if I also tone the colour down by carding it with the grey Shetland that's at mid-right in the picture. The rest, including the pinkish-grey alpaca at top right, I'm probably going to spindle-spin into bits and pieces to add to the oddball and hasten its journey skein-wards.

I've spent part of today gathering my spinning samples and leftovers, plying the singles, and tying the whole lot together into one big skein. This is the second oddball I've made and although it's still predominantly purple, there's a lot more red and a lot less blue in this one than the first.

I think, like my shop-bought leftover yarn, this will be a lengthwise-knit garter stitch scarf or shawl on big needles. But I shall resist the urge to cast on for it until I've cast off the shop-bought one!

...And the equivalent quick update from the spinning front!

The top picture is the second batch of Wisteria fibre that's destined for navajo plying. It's about 300m, which means I'm still on track to product at least 200m of possibly-sock-weight three-ply. I'm itching to ply it, but navajo works better if the singles have relaxed a bit, so I am resisting the urge.

The second picture is my skein of spinning oddballs :-) I have a long-term wip which I've mentioned before, of a scrap scarf made from all the remnants of my commercial yarn; I decided early on in my spinning that I didn't want to absorb my handspun remnants into that scrap project, but would make a separate one. The new Knitty has some stash-busting remnant ideas, which reminded me to get on with sorting out my spinning remnants, so I skeined it up yesterday, and was surprised that it comes to about 100m! And it's really pretty. It's currently one of the 'pet' skeins sitting on my desk to be stroked every now and again, and it's made me realise properly that I love all of my spinning, even my crappy beginner efforts. I don't feel quite the same about my knitting - I feel attached to all of it, but I don't feel uniformly positive about all of it, possibly because it's now finished, and has to be judged on how well it is performing its function. My handspun yarn, on the other hand, is still en route to its finished state (since I assume I'll eventually get round to knitting with most of it), so there are no disappointments to detract from my love for it. I can see flaws in some, of course, but I love every little bit of it anyway.

The second and third pics are singles from Texere's cerise merino, about 224m/50g, which I spun on one of the new whorls offered by my new flyer (bottom picture). The second picture is just before I twisted the skein into, well, a skein, and I just loved how it all curled up like that :-)

The fourth pic is of the same skein, sitting on top of the silk hankies which I will probably ply some of it with. The hankies probably won't make as much yardage as the wool (I got about 150m from the other pack of hankies), so I'll have to think a bit more about it. Maybe I'll keep it as singles, and just knit it in a project with the silk, or maybe I'll ply them (like the lilac 'silk cut' yarn), and put the leftover singles into the next skein of oddball. Not sure yet.

Finally, as mentioned above, my new flyer. I'm pretty certain now that my wheel is an Ashford Traditional (from the 1970s - about the same age as me!), and since my existing flyer had only one whorl (ie only one speed at which the flyer moves relative to the wheel), I splashed out on a replacement flyer with three - three! - whorls (whorls are the circles-with-groves at the left of the picture - the drive band (piece of string) is wrapped around the middle one in the pic). What this means is that I can spin with more twist (for finer yarn), without having to vary the treadling speed. This is a good thing, because there's a speed of treadling that is most comfortable, and controlling twist by speeding up is annoying and tiring. And since this (relatively cheap) addition works, that means I can plan for later, more expensive, additions, like a lace flyer unit which provides more - and smaller - whorls, ie higher ratios and allow for even finer yarn.