Brought To Me By...

Off My Spindle: The Merino/tussah silk blend in the "Jewel" colorway from Enchanted Knoll Farms is finished. I just love all the colors and wish I'd had the foresight to get more than two ounces. See:



Gorgeous colors! I ended up with 317 yards of chain (Navajo) plied yarns in the sport/heavy fingering range (22-24 wpi). That's 951 yards of singles from two ounces of fiber.

Also finished is Batch 1 of the Texel cross fleece. For this batch I got eight small skeins of 3ply yarn. I am spinning this long draw from hand carded rolags and loving it.



Batch 1 totalled 272 yds of 3ply (816 yds of Singles) that are soft, airy and squishy and I can't wait to work with. Reminds me why I like spinning woolen so much! I'm thinking of spinning up some brown/black fleece I have to go with this and making a fair isle yoke sweater.

On/Off My Needles:
Not much knitting done at all. A Hexipuff or two, and a gauge swatch.



Brought To Me By... All this spinning the past few weeks has been accomplished with the following audio &/or video accompaniment: Dr. Who, Hawaii Five-O, True Blood, Shaun the Sheep, The Knit Girllls, Round the Twist, the Knitmore Girls, Knitting Pipeline, Knitting Brooklyn and Subway Knits.

Wool Breeds Challenge - Romney

Romney is a Longwool breed with a fineness count of 32-39 microns, in otherwords kinda scratchy, and a staple length of 5 to 8 inches (per the Knitter's Book of Wool).

This particular sample is of pre-washed Romney fleece from  katrinaswoolworld.etsy.com  





I have not gone through the entire bag of fleece, but what I have gone through has sections with a lot (to me) of VM concentrated in spots.  These locks I'm separating from the cleaner, ready to comb/card locks, and will flick-clean them later (using my little dog slicker).  


 The staple length seems short (only 3-4") compared to breed standard.  It is clean, lanolinwise, and feels softer in lock than the micron count would suggest.  However, the first single I spun was prickly and unconfortable to handle.  And the first very small sample of two ply I made wasn't much better.

The breed standard staple length suggested it should be combed and spun worsted, however, my locks are shorter than standard so I tried carding as well.  It both cards and combs easily.  I tried spinning worsted and woolen from carded and combed prep and finally settled on spinning semi woolen (spinning woolen from combed prep).  I chose this because it made my singles feel softer and less scratchy.  There is a lot of waste from the combed prep which doesn't look too bad, so I'm saving it to card up, picking out the little neps and little balls of very short fibers. 

This is a closeup of my sample skein - three-ply, spun semi-woolen, guessing probably worsted weight - I haven't checked wpi yet.



It came out better than I anticipated.  I think three-ply was a good choice.  It is light and soft enough to use for mittens, hats, anything worn over something else, and possibly a scarf.   However, the jury is still out on whether I like this enough to spin again.   I know a lot of books suggest Romney as a good wool for beginners to spin, but I did not find it as easy to spin as suggested.  Perhaps that is the fault of my prep and not the wool, but still...I have to think about this more.  Maybe by the time I've finished spinning the whole bag I'll change my mind. 

Happy New Year!

On/Off My Needles
Cast on new pr of toe-up socks for mom using stash yarn Knit Picks Comfy Fingering wt in the Merlin color way. Also footing Big Black Socks for Socks for Soldiers, and working on the Hermione socks for me, as well as the Shetland Pi shawl for mom.

Finished Objects - the green Austermann Step socks for mom.



On/Off My Spindle

Off - the super wash merino in the Treasure Chest color way. This was chain plied, and the first two skeins I've finished were sport wt yarn.  The other two skeins are drying and should also be sport weight.  I'll check the yardage when all is dry.




On - for the SpinDoctor Breeds Challenge:

1) Falkland hand painted top from Crown Mountain Farms in the Purple Rain color way. This is a new breed for me, however if I didn't know it was Falkland, I'd have thought it was merino. At least it spins (drafts) just like the Treasure Chest merino I just finished. I'm powering through the spinning (worsted) and will chain ply it (because I need the practice - I have twist/overplying issues).




2) Corriedale from washed fleece.   This was six ounces of locks I got mid December from Country Wool to practice carding and combing, and the first non-commercially processed fiber I've worked with.  Very little VM.  The staple length is on average about three inches.  I've settled on carding.  I tried combing, but while it was long enough, it just felt too sproingy (a very technical term) for the combs.  Carded or combed it has a lot of neps and bumps and stuff, so I'm spinning semi-worsted from woolen prep (because I haven't got the hang of long draw yet) for a three-ply, which I'm hoping will cover the irregularities.  I think it's coming out fairly decent; what do you think? 




3) Romney from washed fleece. 
There's a lot more VM in this than I'm used to dealing with.  So I'm sorting through, hand picking what VM I can and making two piles: the clean enough to use right away, and what needs flicking first (I use dog slickers).  I tried combing to remove the VM, and while it did get rid of some, I needed to make so many passes to achieve it I was afraid I might damage the locks by overcombing.  Flicking seems to work better for the really VM laden locks and seems easier on the locks too. 
The fiber feels softer in the lock than it does when spun, but the finished two-ply feels softer than the singles.
I'm spinning semi-worsted from combed top and the carded comb waste. 
This is just a pic (and not a very good one at that - sorry) of the bag of fleece and some very uneven spinning.  I'm finding it much more difficult to keep my singles consistent when spinning from my prepped fiber than from the commercial top.   Just more things to learn and adapt to I guess.