Tour de Fleece 2014

The first week of the Tour de Fleece I finished spinning the remainder of my Phat Batts, this:

And spun it into four skeins of worsted weight, thick and thin, chain ply yarn totaling about   426 yards.

My second project, spinning sock yarn from some lovely gray Finn/Lincoln cross fleece I hand combed is a traditional worsted spun 3ply with two singles strands spun clockwise and one counterclockwise, and plied counterclockwise. I've never spun this kind of yarn before so I was eager to see what happens.  I ended up with about 299 yds of 3ply which isn't enough for a full pair of socks but would work if I use a different yarn for the legs.

It probably should have more plying twist to be a good sock yarn. I may add that later on.

My third project was to finish plying the 2x2 cabled yarn I was making from the Rambouillet/Montedale cross fleece. I thought I'd finished it several months ago but found some extra bobbins tucked in a corner.  The end result is about 61 yds worth of worsted weight yarn.

Brought To Me By: Crafting accomplished with the following audio/video accompaniment:  
  Audiobooks:. Veronica Mars: The Thousand Dollar Tan Line by Rob Thomas; The Vampire King by Heather Killough-Walden; Curtains For Three by Rex Stout;           
  DVDs etc:   Murder She Wrote; The Big Bang Theory; Witches of East End; Moonlight;              
  Pod/VideoCasts:  The Knit Girllls; Two Tangled Skeins; Twinset Designs; Yarnspinners Tales; Knitmore Girls;                                    

FUBAR fix

ON MY SPINDLES:

Unspinning the horrendously overplied 2x2 cabled Rambouillet Montedale cross yarn using my Navajo spindle is working. It's a little tedious because I have to go slow and watch for the yarn to pop back into the cable, but it works. This is the first skein I got from that tangled mess. It's about 72 yards worth and the wpi is 8. The yarn is quite soft, and I'm quite pleased how it's turning out despite the mess-up.

Think First, Then Spin

Remember the BFL natural multi I spun up as a 4ply 2x2 cabled yarn last year for the Tour de Fleece that didn't produce enough yardage for the sweater I was planning? So I spun up another pound earlier this year to supplement. Remember, this stuff:



Yes, well, I tried swatching with it, and was surprised to find the yarn doesn't stay cabled when I knit with it. It looks like I'm knitting with two strands of yarn held together (which technically I am). But it's not supposed to look like that! Why? Why? Why? After all that work! Why?

After throwing my swatch across the room in a fit of pique, I retrieved my swatch, and more importantly my needles, from Miss Ginger's clutches (she considers anything that flies past her fair game), and sat down to contemplate my error. I've never had a problem knitting with my handspun before. Why now?

Turns out the "Why" is because I jumped in head first without checking the water depth, i.e. I only went as far as technically learning how to make the cabled yarn but not how the cabling affects the yarn itself and the fabric it produces. Cabled yarn is made by plying together two strands of already plied yarn in the opposite direction they were plied in originally. Which is exactly what I did. I spun my singles clockwise, plied them counterclockwise, then plied two strands clockwise.

I always spin my singles clockwise and ply them counterclockwise. Why? When I started spinning I was "told" that's the way commercial yarn is spun and was the best for knitting. Crocheters and weavers (if they're using a plied yarn vs a single) prefer the opposite. I don't weave, I knit. And I rarely crochet these days. So clockwise singles/counterclockwise plying is my standard yarn. It's like breathing - I don't think about, I just do it.

Can you see where I went wrong yet? Exactly! My final ply is going in the wrong direction. For a cabled yarn I can knit with that stays cabled looking I need to start with counterclockwise singles so my final plying would also be counterclockwise. And I need to think ahead to what my final yarn will be used for, not just that it looks pretty.

Now I could fix the twist direction problem by doing another cable ply (and I will try a sample of this to verify), but that would give me an 8ply 2x2 cable probably mega-bulky yarn. Right now the yarn is a heavy, dense, heavy-Worsted/Aran weight. Doubling it might make it too heavy to work with, or, too heavy to comfortably wear as a garment. I am not nor have I ever been a fan of extremely bulky yarn.

Hmmm, I see another swatch in my future....
Damn. I hate swatching! Seriously.

Tour de Fleece 2011

This year's goal for the TdF was to spin and ply thirty-six ounces of Bluefaced Leicester (BFL) commercial top for a sweater for me. I split up the top into sixteen daily allotments which was supposed to leave me with days of rest and time for plying. That was the plan. It didn't quite go according to plan. Well, it did, until the heat came and mucked up my spinning mojo. At the end of the Tour, I was left with three days allotments unspun and a lot of plying to do.

This is what I was left with: One completed skein of 4ply 2x2 cable yarn which I really, really like how it came out. Three days allotment unspun, five bobbins of plied 2ply, three and a quarter unplied 2ply plying balls, and two partially filled bobbins of singles.

Each of the plied bobbins and plying balls is about two hundred yards, probably more, of yarn. The big wheel bobbins hold about a thousand yards of singles at the wpi I've been spinning. Which means I managed to spindle spin over four thousand yards of singles in less than 22 days (there were more than a few days when I didn't spin or just plied what was already spun). So I may not have completed my goal, but I'm satisfied with what I've accomplished. Looking forward to next year's Tour when I think I'll concentrate on non-wool spinning. Perhaps cotton or alpaca. Definitely something to look forward to.

Wool Breeds Challenge - Coopworth and Blue-faced Leicester

Coopworth is a Longwool breed developed in New Zealand during the 1950s and 60s by crossing Border Leicester and Romney breeds. It has luster or shine, an average staple length of six to eight inches, and a micron count of thirty-five to thirty-nine.

My sample is a commercial top preparation, and has a staple length of about four inches (maybe a little more) - shorter than the breed standard.

I spun my sample long draw from the fold for a 3ply yarn. I enjoyed spinning this, but I think that if the staple length had been truer to the breed standard, I might not have liked it. I've found spinning staples of more than five inches (six max) is a struggle and takes me out of my comfort zone (not always a bad thing).

Blue-faced Leicester is also a Longwool breed. It originated in Hexam, Northumberland County, England and is a decendant of the Leicester Longwool. It is sometimes called a Hexam Leicester. Under certain lighting conditions, the short white hairs covering the black skin on their heads makes their faces/heads look blue, hence the name. Blue-faced Leicester, or BFL, should have a micron count of twenty-four to twenty-eight and an average staple length of three to six inches.

My sample is commercially prepared top with a staple length of five plus inches. I've spun very small amounts of BFL before, but as I have two pounds of BFL top that I'm planning on spinning for a sweater project, I thought I'd use this sample as a test on how I'd like to ply for the sweater.

I spun the top from the fold worsted (well, I guess technically that's semi-worsted) for a 3ply yarn. It spun easily. BFL is soft with a bit of shine. Like spinning Merino, I find spinning BFL kinda boring, but I did like the feel of the wool better than a Border Leicester or Lincoln. Anything feels better than Lincoln.

I left a third of my total 3ply yardage as 3ply sample. The remaining two thirds I used to make a 6ply cable yarn which I liked much better than the 3ply. When I get around to testing the actual project BFL, I will try a 4ply cable to see if I like it as much as the six.

Breed information provided by "The Knitter's Book of Wool" by Clara Parkes and "In Sheep's Clothing" by Nola & Jane Fournier.