Spinning Blue Yarn
September 11th, 2005 at 7:36 pm (spinning)
Not a very exciting entry title, but appropriate none-the-less. I have been spinning blue yarn:
Starting from top left, and working clockwise: Unspun roving. Approx 3 oz of spun yarn in two skeins (the smaller was what wouldn’t fit on the first bobbin when I was plying it) and my two tiny sample skeins from when I was deciding how to ply it. I ended up deciding to make a two ply yarn. It’s probably around sport to dk weight. Don’t quote me on that, because I’m terrible at judging the size of yarn :)
As you can see from the roving, it’s really got some great colors in it. I bought it that way, cuz I wanted to be able to just sit down and spin something pretty. Well, because it’s all dyed and blended and put up into a nice combed roving, all the life has gone out of each individual fiber. I was having a dickens of a time figuring out how to spin it that wasn’t going to take 10 years by pinching every single group of fibers out worsted style (also called the inch worm method).
I drafted it a ton, I tried spinning it from the big huge bundle. I tried long draw (that didn’t work at _all_), finally a friend who is smarter than I am suggested trying to spin it from the fold. Well, since it was no longer in anything resembling lock form, I had to get it into small sections that were like locks. Pulling a bunch off the end worked - the staple length is about 2.5 - 3". Suddenly - I was liking the fiber a whole lot more! I refined my method by pulling off smaller sections from the end, then piling them together when I had enough to cover my index finger. THis had the benefit of loosening up the fibers when I was making my small pile, but giving me enough fiber that I could spin off it for a few minutes before having to do the next bundle. Voila!
I spun and plyed the 3oz in a fairly short time after all that. I still have about 3.5oz left totally unspun and probably a 1/2ounce already spun into singles. I’m debating trying to make the same exact yarn in the second skein, so that I can make something somewhat bigger OR trying to go a bit finer. I was thinking a hat/scarf/mitten set out of the whole thing (deleting the hat if there wasn’t enough) It’d be nice if the mittens/gloves were in a finer weight yarn.
