TdF Day 13

Early this morning, like crack of dawn early, I plied up the second braid of Cheviot. Worsted spun, chain (Navajo) plied, and I think they both came out nicely:



Will figure out the yardage after they've dried.


Started spinning the Alpaca/silk blend this evening. Refresher:



This is a brown (chocolate) alpaca and silk blend dyed in lovely jewel tones called Chocolate Rainbow. I've decided on spinning this worsted, and as it appears I can spin this fine enough to get a thin (say maybe fingering weight) 3ply yarn, I'm planning to chain ply and keep the colors intact. Staple length averages about three plus inches which isn't as long as I expected. It's slippery and needs more twist than I expected as well. I'm thinking I might like this better to spin if it had a little less silk in it (this is 50/50 blend). I do like the difference in dye take-up between the silk and the alpaca though.


Brought To Me By:
DVDs etc: Dr Who-The End of Time; Buffy TVS season 7;
Pod/Videocasts: Yarnspinners Tales; Round The Twist

TdF Day 9 - Llama etc

I started spinning the Llama cloud early this morning. Should probably call this Dark Chocolate Bliss! The staple length for this is about an inch or so. No guard hairs. Very easy to spin; just pull off clumps of fiber and go. Spinning longdraw because of the short staple length and it's going very smoothly. I'm thinking I'll make this a 2ply yarn.



Also started spinning the second Cheviot braid, and some more cotton. Things are progressing.

And after checking out the 70/30 alpaca/silk fiber this morning, I'm still contemplating how it should be spun. I need to take a piece off and sample which I prefer - spinning worsted or semi-worsted. Hoping to get enough for a good sized shawl so definitely a 2ply, but how to spin requires more thought.


Brought To Me By:
DVDs, etc: Dr Who: The Waters of Mars
Pod/Videocasts:. Yarnspinners Tales, Round The Twist,

TdF Days 4-7

This isn't blogging every day, I know. Me bad. Its not that I have nothing to say, it's just that I'm not so good at coordinating words and especially pictures on a daily basis. So I'm going to play catch-up now and try again for daily posting tomorrow.

Day 4 I spun some more cotton on the spindle and I think I was finally getting the hang of it. At least I only dropped the spindle a few times. No new picture, so look at the previous post's picture and imagine a cop twice as big.

Day 5 I got the urge to ply. Instead of spinning up more cotton, I chain (Navajo) plied what I'd spun up of the Promise fiber. You'll possibly remember that's the pink, blue and lavender stuff. It's a small skein of probably fingering weight yarn (twist hasn't been set yet so it might bloom a little) See:



Days 6 and 7 (yesterday & today) I spun and plied, a lot actually. Of course none of it was what I was supposed to spin for TdF, but it's spinning so I'm counting it. Yesterday I tried organizing my WIPs baskets and came across two braids of handdyed Cheviot fiber that said 'spin me'. So I did. I spun the first braid yesterday and chain plied it today. The fiber is from Two Sisters Stringworks, and while the Cheviot was a little coarse feeling, the fiber braid itself was lovely to work with. Sometimes hand dyeing can slightly felt wool fiber making it difficult to work with. Not the case with this fiber. It drafted easily without any pre-drafting, and the colors are lovely. I think it will be a DK weight yarn after the twist is set, and at least 130 yds of 3ply, probably more.



I also plied up another 3ply skein of the pre-washed half of Mo today. Mo is the Finn/Dorset/Targhee cross fleece I've been processing; half is raw wool and half pre-washed by the seller. No pics of this yet. All my Mo skeins (except one) need a bath first before they're camera ready and I can get a final yardage count. I'm keeping one skein unwashed so I have something to aim for when I spin up the second half.

Brought To Me By:
Audiobooks: Embrace the Night by Karen Chance; Medicus: A Novel of the Roman Empire by Ruth Downie; 
DVDs etc: Dr Who season 4, Rosemary & Thyme season 2

Wool Breeds Challenge - Falkland and Cheviot

Falkland


Falkland wool comes from sheep grown on the Falkland Islands. It is not a distinct breed but rather a crossbreed of mainly Corriedale and Polwarth. . Therefore, there is no mention of a Falkland sheep in either In Sheep's Clothing or The Knitter's Book of Wool. I did an internet search for Falkland sheep and found several references to it, including the following from the Falkland Islands government site and Crown Mountain Farms. Both mentioned the lack of synthetics and chemicals used in growing the fleece.
http://www.falklands.gov.fk/Agriculture.html#
http://crownmountainfarms.com/clubs/index.php/fiberclub11/fiberinfo10/51


The Falkland I spun was dyed top from Crown Mountain Farms (Purple Rain colorway), and I found very little difference in either feel or draft-ability between the Falkland and the Merino I've spun (also from CMF). The Falkland is not quite as soft and not quite as smooth but still very nice to work with.

This first skein was spun in my default semi-worsted style and chain plied, both on spindles. The only problem I found (actually just a little annoyance) was when smoothing the freshly twisted single it didn't really feel smooth but more like I was ruffling the wool scales back (if that makes any sense). And it didn't seem to make a difference which end of the top I spun from, or whether I spun semi-worsted or true worsted. I got used to it eventually, but it made me wonder what this wool would be like to spin woolen. Perhaps if my next bump of Falkland is a natural, solid or semi-solid color I might try carding the top and spinning woolen. Something to look forward to.
I would very much like to spin this again.






Cheviot

Like the Dorset Horn I spun a few weeks ago, Cheviot is one of the Down breeds.  According to The Knitter's Book of Wool it has a micron count of 27-33 and an average staple length of 3 to 5 inches. 

This sample was spun from pre-processed fiber from the Spinning Loft's sampler (as was the Dorset Horn).  Again, I'm not quite sure what the prep is, combed or carded.  It might be pin-drafted roving? maybe?  But as I've never seen that, I'm just guessing.  The fibers are somewhat aligned but then again not.  Regardless, I chose to spin long draw, but because of the unknown prep, it should more acurately be called semi-woolen.

Cheviot feels very similar to the Dorset Horn - spongy, heavy or dense - and maybe a little bit softer.  It drafted very easily and gave me fairly thin singles which I made into a three ply yarn.   My small sample skein ended up as approximately 37 yards of three-ply with a wpi in the 14-18 range. 

It was easy to spin and I would spin it again.  I think it would lend itself to worsted spinning more easily than the Dorset Horn, and in the future I would choose between Cheviot and Dorset Horn based on how I planned to spin - Cheviot for worsted and Dorset Horn for woolen.