Spinning 2

Rain rain go away...Or not. A rainy weekend is such a good excuse to snuggle up inside doing not very much. Because, you know..."if it was fine I would be out digging in the garden and schlepping rocks and all, but, oh dear, I'll just have to stay inside and drink tea and enjoy myself :)". Not that gardening, and even rock moving, isn't enjoyable.

 

So, here is the rest of the spinning experiment.  This is 2 strands of singles, plied together i.e. twisted together through the wheel in the opposite direction.

 

 

I put the 2 bobbins of singles into a lazy kate.  Well, in theory, a lazy kate, but in fact a box that the spinning wheel new bits came in, with a couple of knitting needles through.  Works perfectly!

 

 

Then fed both strands back into the wheel and spun in the opposite direction, creating double knit.

The trick is to get the twist in one direction the same as the twist in the other direction, not so easy. 

 

 

 

 

Here I managed beautiful singles, but over twisted when plying, so it curled up on itself.  But as it is only experimental, to see if I remember how, no worries. I now know what to check for on the real thing.

2 bobbins of singles made 3 bobbins of plied - more air gaps I guess.  Normally I would wind these on a skein maker, called a niddy noddy (yes, really) and then wash them, but I've misplaced mine, so went straight to the ball stage.  Then I tried knitting it, to see how thick it all turned out.  Quite thick about 10 ply gauge I reckon.  All good stuff.  Don't know what I'll do with these now though.  This is Romney wool, and a bit scratchy, not bad, but not really good enough for a scarf.

 

And...ta dah....this is the real thing. This gorgeous natural chocolate brown fleece is a Corriedale, so lovely and soft.  Also it is a finer wool, smaller crimp, so I'll spin it finer too.  So now I have to make a (small, because I don't want to delay too much longer) sample and ply it, to see if I've got the twist about right.  Looks like a pony tail laying there.

Spinning

What to do on a rainy weekend?  Fish out the ancient spinning wheel from under the house and get it going!  It required a couple of new bits, as the old ones had rusted away.  And a good coat of linseed and turps.  Couldn't for the life of me remember how to thread it all up, where the drive bands attached to, but thank goodness for google.  But once I'd made it actually go round, turns out it really is like riding a bicycle, my hands knew just exactly what to do.  As long as I kept my brain out of it.

I'm pretty proud of this, as my first effort in 20 years.  I've got to make another one the same, and then ply them - twist them together with the spin in the opposite direction - if I can remember how....  I think it will make about an 8 ply yarn, we'll see.

This fleece is leftovers of an old one I had, its a natural grey colour, or will be when I have washed it.  Its possible its gone a bit yellow with age though.  It came as a carded sliver, see below, so it is clean, and all brushed, and very easy to spin. You can spin direct from the cut staples off a sheep's back which takes longer and more preparation, but this is what I had.  I've bought a new fleece, a chocolate natural colour, but thought I'd get all the knots out of my technique on my practice one first.