I'm not sure if what I am doing today is so basic as to be unnecessary or if it will be helpful. But I thought I'd use the spinning of my Blue Hawaiian roving as an opportunity to describe how I prepare a hand-dyed roving for spinning. If you can do this in your sleep, just skip down to the bottom few photos which show the Blue Hawaiian colorway in all its spun up and ready to knit glory.
I find that after dyeing, the ends can be a little matted and hard to deal with, so I just snip the ends off with scissors.
After getting rid of the ends, I spend a reasonable amount of time teasing and fluffing the roving in preparation for dividing it into strips that I will spin from. This helps me get rid of tangles and understand the construction of the roving aand identify the natural dividing lines.
I try to split the roving into two roughly equal parts as I start the dividing process.
Then I try to divide the halves into roughly equal width pieces that have an amount of fiber that I am comfortable spinning from. Usually this involves dividing each piece into two until I reach a minimal width.
I'm almost ready to start working on it at this point. I like to use this stage to see how the different pieces play against each other. Are some more dark or light than others? I've gotten better random color distribution when I don't just work from one side of the roving to the other.
I take each piece and tug all the way up and down to pre-draft the fibers. I do this by holding my hands about 6" apart and just gently tugging to loosen up the fibers. Obviously it's not good to pull too hard or you separate the fibers. This makes the roving pieces nice and fluffy and easy to spin from. It's also a good way to figure out which end of the roving is easier to spin from. It seems like there's always one direction that works better than the other. I'm not sure if this is because of the scales on the wool, static electricity or some other wooly property that I don't understand.
Spinning up the stuff on a drop spindle is the subject of an entire post on it's own. If you want a good intro, check out this quarter's Spin Off for a nice intro (there are also a lot of good resources on the web... just google for drop spindle instructions). Here's the Blue Hawaiian yarn as a single. Lots of nice luminous blue and green. You just gotta know, given my color preferences, taht this colorway makes me happy.
After spinning th single, I wind it off onto my niiddy noddy, tie it in 4 places and dump it into a warm water bath with some Eucalan to help set the twist. I don't actually have to do this step, but I find it helps me get better control of the yarn when I'm plying. I was able to wind this single around my niddy noddy 126 times and it's about 54" around one time, so the total yardage is about 190 yards! That's a lot of yarn from .5 ounce. Amazing to think that I have spun enough from this little piece of wool to go up and down a football field almost twice.
After setting the twist for the single, I create a center pull ball with the help of my ball winder and swift and create a two ply yarn by spinning from both ends of the center pull ball. I've found that I like plying better when I use my Bosworth spindles which are heavier weight than my Charis spindle. This is a shot of the two-ply yarn after another dunk in some hot water to let it relax and let the twist set. This yarn is happy, soft and balanced. After plying, I've got about 93 yards. It's very similar in diameter to the Sunset roving after plying, but I haven't calculated wpi to confirm.
Here's a close up of my favorite hand-dyed, hand-spun yarn to date. This yarn is really quite close to what i had in my mind's eye when I started thinking about the color way. I wanted something that would have a tweedy quality when knit up, but would be closer to a solid color. Engaging, but not gaudy. The color in this picture isn't perfect (I think the colors are a tad richer in real life), but close enough to give you a very good sense for what kind of personality this yarn has. Makes me want to grab my knitting needles and dive into the water.
WOW! That is gorgeous! ::pants, drools:: I am so jealous.
beautiful! I'm inspired to pick my spindle back up and give it another go.
my favorite colour! you are so clever
Thank you for the detailed description! I've just started spinning and was glad to see exactly how I should do. And compliments on the colour - it's fabulous!
I'm speechless with awe over "Blue Hawaiian". It's exactly my dream yarn, too, kind of like the Holy Grail to us blue-green lovers! Thanks for sharing, and congratulations on your best yarn so far!
Stunning. Just stunning.
Okay, so I don't spin, but I enjoyed seeing the process step-by-step. How long does that all take, start to finish?
Oh! thank you for explaining all that so nicely. I have never seen a walk through of preparing the fiber. I have tried and tried to spin with my spindle and I get so frustrated, I think maybe I need to get a quality spindle and try again.
Very pretty.
If you can let the singles "age" after spinning them, they will settle down for plying that way too.
But, that involves WAITING.
;-)
One word: Gorgeous!
i was just thinking yesterday.. oh I hope she does a step by step on the spinning process. I just knew you would! I am a purple/blue/green addict myself.. have you tried to duplicate a coloway yet..to make more of a color of yarn to make something larger like a shawl?
sue
You mentioned that you would like to try to spin a little thicker yarn. All you need to do is not split the roving so much. The rovings that we were working with, I would split in half or quarters are the most. That's probably why I get a thicker yarn in the end.
Love this colorway, btw!
That is some gorgeous yarn you've got there! Nice job! Now, what are you going to make?
Amazing yarn! (the story and the resulting fibre!) I've just begun drop spindle spinning recently, and your explanation of preparing the roving was very helpful. I keep having problems with the twist going up to far and making it hard to draft. Besides watching my pinch, I can see that this kind of preparation will help. Thanks!
It wasn't too basic at all. I was really glad to see this broken out step by step and feel like I have a better grasp on the process.
Beautiful work! I can't wait to see what it evolves into next.
ALMOST enough to make me pick up my spindle which has laid dormant for more than 15 years! (I believe I am spindle-challenged!) I never realized the effort involved in spinning plied yarn. Gives me a new-found appreciation for hand-spun yarn...absolutely love the colour and thank you for the tutorial...
Sooo pretty! Thanks so much for the step-by-step process, which is all new to me.
A question: How long did it take to get from big pile of fluffy to the two-ply finished yarn? Just curious.
Thank you so much for the VERY informative post. I have just gotten into spinning and will try many different techniques over the next few weeks I am sure. I appreciate every bit of help I can get.
On to the yarn. WOW. I am Sooooo jealous. What are you going to make from it? do you know yet?
Both the Sunset and Blue Hawaii yarns are gorgeous - thanks for the tutorial!
Love those yarn!
Thanks for the spinning details. My hands are itching to try out drop spindle spinning. :)
Hmmm. I've never set my singles before plying (other than the times that I forget about them and leave them on the bobbin for weeks). I've had no problems going straight into plying after spinning but I'll have to try your way. I'm a self-taught spinner (trial and error) though so maybe that's why I didn't know. Is this the common way to do it?
Gorgeous colours in your dyeing, by the way.