This weekend I borrowed the drum carder, so I could do a few things. One of those things was the Coopworth, which even scoured twice was still greasy. I tried to pick out the second cuts and VM and all those other annoying bits. What I wasn’t counting on was the tips to disintegrate in carding. So now I have carded batts with even more noils in them than before. And seemingly no less VM, despite cleaning up piles of it from the floor. Most of a day of carding produced six large batts.
I spun a section of one tonight. About ten minutes into it, with a lap full of junk I’d pulled out and a grungy-looking yarn on the bobbin, I skeined it off to wash. It didn’t look any better.
My original idea was to spin half S and half Z and do a striped warp. Not only do I not like this yarn, I don’t want to use it for warp either. It’s full of slubs from all the broken tips and then there’s still the VM. I’ll wait until morning and see how the skein looks dry, but this is seriously turning into a “Life’s too short” project. It’s one thing to go through hours and hours of work wondering if the end result will turn out like you imagined. It’s another entirely to do it for something you are certain is going to suck no matter what.
But I did finally get back to the Merino, I filled the last of the first bobbin. 132 grams. I could get a little more on there if I tried, but I’d have to stop and adjust it too much to be worth the bother. Now I just have to finish the other two.
Leave a Reply