SpinnySpinny

I’m almost done with the single for my first learning exchange yarn. The topic is Merino, so I wanted to explore carded fiber spun woolen. I have never been happy with how Merino spins drafting against the twist, nor any similarly textured crimpy fine wool. It doesn’t draft smoothly, it clumps no matter what I do to it. Most fleeces I see are too long to spin well this way anyway, but I happen to have a small amount of shorter Merino fleece.

It’s horribly filthy, I’ve been flicking it to get all the gunk out thinking I might try carding it. I hand carded a bin of rolags. As much as I hate hand carding, for this small amount of fiber finding someone with a fine cloth drum carder would have taken longer than just doing it. I’m spinning a moderately fine single, with just a little more twist than the minimum required to hold the yarn together. I’m trying to keep it even but it’s just insane. I’m not going to stop every length to fix every last slub like I had to do for the COE. Long draw is supposed to be fast and the yarn soft and lofty, such low-twist yarn would have to be absolutely perfectly even to not have thick and thin bits. What little twist there is tends to go to the fine spots, leaving the thicker sections to puff up.

Less crimpy fibers draft into an even yarn reasonably well, but more crimp does nothing but clump. It doesn’t appear to have anything to do with fiber length, the same thing happend with the nasty mystery fleece and that was not even remotely near the theoretical 3 inch limit for woolen spinning. But it was a fine fiber with a tight crimp. As was the Columbia cross I tried. And no matter how much I spin of this kind of fiber, my yarn does not improve. I’ve gotten better at stretching the rolag out into yarn, but it always ends up drafting unevenly into either slubs or thin sections. Supposedly you pinch the rolag so you are drafting a consistent amount of fiber with each length, but where the streched-out rolag breaks into a thin yarn-sized spot happens basically at random. Almost never where I am holding it.

So I’m doing a 4-ply and then I’ll give it a good thrashing to full it. I might pick off the larger lumps, as I’m sure there will be some left. It’s basically what I did for the 16-ply cable I did of the mystery fleece, but I don’t feel like going through all that again.

I haven’t been able to update the website, because our DSL is still not installed. The telco couldn’t get the address right and insisted we didn’t exist. I think our ISP finally re-ordered the circuit to get it correct. So instead of being offline a week, it’s going to be a month. I can still enjoy it from my personal laptop, but that doesn’t help you all that much. All five of you, as best as I can tell. I’ve been wanting to do some promotion for the website but I’ve held off knowing this would happen. I wouldn’t want to get everybody all excited and then have the website down.

But the world of textiles moves on, and as things get settled in the new place I’m getting back to spinning. I signed up for a Learning Exchange program with HGA, basically a sample swap with everyone getting bits of all the yarns. Each one is evaluated by the leader and everybody gets copies of the comments. I wanted to try the program, so I signed up for the Merino exchange. I’ve been spinning Merino for years, so I can explore without worrying too much about it. I know I can always produce some nice yarns just by going back to my normal spinning style. It’s a bit of a nuisance to do it in the middle of moving, but I’ll manage. I have two samples I like so far and I might do a third. There are more participants than the estimated 8 and each gets a fiber sample, small skein and wrapped wpi card. More of those detestable cards to cut, mark and wind. That right there may keep me to two yarns.

The loom is here, but it’s still in pieces. It will be a few more weeks before the place is together enough to start working on it, but I’m already ordering yarn and calling in various equipment out on loan.

Finally the bobbin of purple scarf warp is done. It looks nice but I’d rather be spinning something else. I’ve thought about it and determined that it’s mostly the short staple length that bothers me. I think the 600m I have will be enough, so I can put the rest of this fiber in storage and pull out the black top. That has a longer staple length, so maybe I’ll like it more. I started a page over in Projects for this, and even have a photo up.

I finally finished a baby blanket I started a few months back. It’s a big dishcloth in classic cotton dishcloth-type yarn. I put it in the Gallery, too. I started it thinking it would be a good travel project, but even with the absurdly simple pattern the two colors were a nuisance to drag around without tangling. I finally ended up putting it in a basket and threading the yarns through the two handles. It was too heavy and too easy to tangle for travel, so I rarely worked on it.

I’m still sorting and washing the Merino lamb, it does drum card nicely but I think I’m going to comb anyway. Combing doesn’t require an extra step to get the VM out. I tried carding with the bleached tips cut off and it is darker, but only barely. It’s good and dark for wool, but not black. I might dye it once it’s spun. I can’t decide what to make, so for now I’m just working through the scouring a batch at a time.

I did the Dorset/Romney blend on the drum carder and it came out nicely. There are a few noils because I didn’t flick the Romney, but not too many to pull out along the way. I can’t figure out what to do with that either. There’s almost 300g, enough for several hats or a scarf or maybe a lace shawl. Spun worsted it will still have decent loft, perfect for socks but I like finer fiber for socks. And I hate hand washing socks, anyway. I want to finish the spinning I’ve got going, so I packed it away for now.

Also in the interest of cleaning up half-baked ideas, I started flicking yet another dark brown Merino. I long ago packed up the nicer parts of this fleece, a rush scour job after a brush with the M-word. I wasn’t so careful with the sorting and more than usual ended up in the carding pile. Which then felted a little in the wash. After that, I wasn’t happy with how it came off the drum carder. So it’s been sitting around in an old produce bag ever since. I should be able to pull out enough well-formed staples to flick out the felted bits and then card and still have enough to do something. I could always blend it with more from the other portion, or any of the other three nearly identical fleeces. Somebody kick me if I suggest buying yet another dark brown Merino fleece before I make it through the ones I have. That should give me a good five years, minimum.

Lately I’ve been less than enamored of my current spinning project and also in need of more stare-into-space time, so long sessions with the dog brush are actually a good thing. I have fairly easy access to the drum carder now, so I’m trying out different things. But I always go back to combing anything that can be combed and then only maybe getting around to carding the rest.

Now that the blanket is done, maybe I can get motivated to continue with the purple Ashland Bay stuff. I’m trying to like commercial prep but failing to be enthused. Maybe I’m just out of enthusiasm this month, it being used up on other things. I’ve had some real work and expect more and we are trying to buy a house. I’ve been organizing my fiber stuff with the thought of having an actual room to myself for a studio. Maybe that’s why I just don’t have the energy for this pretty but too short and very not perfect commercial top. It’s like those things on the shopping list I never quite get to, despite being out of AAA batteries for weeks now.

Every time I intend to sit down and do something textile, real life intrudes. But finally, with The Boyfriend off for the weekend, I can do something. I’m not particularly inspired to spin, so fiber prep it is. And with nobody to complain, out comes the music…

L’amour est enfant de Bohême,
il n’a jamais, jamais connu de loi,
si tu ne m’aimes pas, je t’aime,
si je t’aime, prends garde à toi!

No, la Carmencita makes cigarettes, not textiles. But it’s nice to listen to, anyway. And then I’ll visit with Mimì and Susanna and maybe even Turandot.

I previously sorted the short and excessively crimpy part of the Romney fleece and started picking it to later card. I’m contemplating blending it with what’s left of the Dorset. But that is filthy and has to be combed out with the dog brush to get out all the trash. They are similar in length but the Dorset is more bouncy, together it should make a light gray. I don’t know what I’m going to do with any of it, so why not.

I did the same dog brush number to some of the Merino lamb, to see what I think about it drum carded. I tried some combed and that was nice, but I thought I’d give it a try. I’ve got enough of it. But I might have to find somebody with a fine fiber carder because I have my doubts about the standard one I normally have available. If the fiber is too fine, it doesn’t stay in the teeth of the carder but floats on top in clumps. I know a lot of people with drum carders, but some are more convenient to visit than others.