Monday, October 25, 2010

Over a pound of wild yarn


I have several large spinning projects planed for the winter.

My goal to reduce my fleece collection to yarn has me combing and spinning up a delightful grey Romney into lace weight singles for weaving. I'll spin it up on my Quebec wheel as the double drive gives such a consistent yarn.

I also have miles and miles of hand dyed silk/bamboo blend to spin lace weight, 2ply on my Ashford. The silk/bamboo will be warp with the handspun cotton singles that I'm spinning on my Charkha for weft.

I don't know yet what I'll do with these fabrics, but I just feel like making them.

Then, it's time to borrow someone's carder (mine is too coarse and out on loan) to card up some baby alpaca which I think will make a splendid 2ply lace. I like spinning lace, it's just a pity that I don't like knitting it.

These projects are quite large and should take me well into the Christmas season to accomplish.



Unless I'm spinning for socks, I like spinning large amounts of fibre into yarn. I'm tired of making a small amount of beautiful yarn and never using it because I don't know if I have enough to finish a project.

So perhaps you won't think me weird to say that before I embark on these larger projects, I felt a need to spin up a small amount of fun fibre - small amount being equal to just over a pound.


I carded up the batts on an Ashford Wild Carder (which works like a dream) and used a Corriedale base of blue with a touch of red. I added white angora and purple silk noils. I put it all randomly through the carder just once, spun it into slubby yarn and plied it on itself. It actually didn't turn out as slubby as I had planed.


There you have it. Over 500g of yarn.

I have no idea what to make with this, so for now it's just going in my stash. I had originally planed to sell it, and I still might. The thing is, it is growing on me and I wonder if I could manage a vest from it. There might even be enough there for a sweater...

1 comment:

Josiane said...

I love the way you're experimenting with those batts you make; I need to do more of that myself. I'm sure you could get a very pretty vest out of this yarn!