Spinning: July 2006 Archives
At least that is what my dad is always telling me. And in order to try to create a more peaceful co-existance between my Lendrum lazy kate and WooLee Winder bobbins, I took a brief detour to the Home Depot over the weekend and with the help of my very clamp knowledgeable Dad, selected a couple of cute little guys that could help me get my kate at an angle that might be more conducive to productive plying.
This actually did work pretty well for a little while, but I did have problems with the bobbins moving rightward because I couldn't get it clamped at an angle where the posts were just a little bit vertical. Eventually, I had to switch to moving the Kate onto the floor with the eye that the plys are threaded through being propped on a computer game box so I could get the kate more horizontal. There was definitely still some Kate frustration, but at least there was no ply breakage. So I am still going to have to find a better Kate solution, but this will do in a pinch while I wait for my dad to build me a custom Kate (yes, I know about the Kromski Kate, but I am thinking I might like one that looked more like my wheel. For some reason I feel like I need to be a bit matchy matchy on this issue.
While I am utterly satisfied with the incredibleness of this color (yes, it really is as deliciously orange as the picture suggests), I really wish I could offer you squeeze-o-vision so that you could know what this skein feels like. I think one of my favorite parts of spinning is anticipating the magical transformation that occurs between a newly plied yarn getting a final soak and drying into the yarn it will really become. This yarn went from being a little bit lifeless to being sproingy and resiliant. Even a little bit elastic. And balanced. I just hung it outside to dry with no weighting so that it could do its thing. But there was no over or under twist.
It's not perfect, but it's probably one of the best yarns I've spun to date. I love all the different shades and the happy barber-poling that I can see going on.
Some final vital statistics: I spun 320 yards and the skein weighs in at 3.9 oz, which is about 82 yards/ounce (which is almost exactly the same as STR Light, which comes in at 80 yards/ounce). I'm thinking that that should be enough yarn to make a pair of socks for me if I don't get too fancy. But it's kind of neat knowing that I still have a bunch of fiber left.... if I run out of yarn, I can always spin a bit more for myself!
I've discovered soemthing I like very much about spinning sock yarn: 4 ounces is not very much to spin. Two ounces on one bobbin, two ounces on the second bobbin and all of a sudden you're ready to ply. If you're guessing that I have a thing for instantaneous gratification, you'd be correct.
Now that I have spun through half of the Hang On Sloopy Superwash Merino that I purchased from Crown Mountain Farms, I can unequivocally and without reservation or hesitation say that this fiber is truly wonderful to spin. When you combine it with a happy wheel with a WooLee Winder, well, it just gets better. I spun it at a 10:1 ratio and that required that I increase my drafting speed a bit to keep up with the twist, but I found it very easy to develop a good rhythm and I think the whole process helped me to improve my drafting technique. In the past I was pulling fiber out and releasing. On this I would pull the fiber out, but slide my finger down the twist to control the twist and pull out the next bit. As a result, I was always able to maintain a pretty nice drafting triangle -- something that I hadn't really been able to do before. It is true: the more you spin, the better you get.
A closeup because there can never be enough orange, can there? I can hardly wait to start plying this stuff into its final form. What is it about colors like this that have the power to actually improve my mood when I think about them?
And speaking of mood altering experiences, I got a very special little pick-me-up from Emma today. This gift packs mood altering color, texture and just general good friendly feelings all in 415 yards: it's a skein of Curious Yarns Sock yarn in the colorway -- or should I say colourway -- "Sprung". Even my petunias are in awe of it's happy yellows and greens. Certainly this skein is worthy of some sock designing, I think! Thank you so much, Emma!
About a week ago, Gia asked what had happened to my "Hang on Sloopy" superwash merino from Crown Mountain Farms. At the time, I hadn't gotten started on it yet because I wanted to bond with my WooLee Winder a bit more before taking on spinning a fiber I had never spun before. Believe it or not, I've not actually tried a 100% merino spinning fiber yet, and certainly not one that is prepared to superwash. So I wanted to make sure I understood my equipment well before I dove into all that orangey goodness.
When I first posted about Sloopy, I asked the one burning question I had about making sock yarn from this fiber: 2 ply or 3 ply? The answers I got summed up to "3 ply gives you the best and most durable yarn, but a tightly spun and plied 2 ply can do well under the right circumstances". In fact, I even got some email from Teyani, owner of Crown Mountain Farm. She told me that the Sock Hop yarn that she and her team of spinners create is a two ply. This was confirmed by Cheryl who is one of Teyani's spinners, who also reminded me that with a three ply, my color intervals would be closer together and the defined regions of color that would create stripes would be harder to distinguish. So now I was torn. Which way to go? I even went so far as to deconstruct some of my favorite merino yarns for socks: Koigu is a 2 ply, Socks that Rock yarns are 3 plys.
So that left me really with just one thing to do: spin up some samples for myself. With 8 ounces of Sloopy at my disposal, I didn't need to feel nervous about not having enough for a sock project after the test.
This fiber did take a little time for me to get used to spinning. I found that at the drive ratio that I wanted to spin it at (about 10:1) the take up could be a little strong as the first layer of single was wrapped on the bobbin. After a little practice I got something that I liked and that I could maintain relatively easily. This fiber is absolutely fabulous to spin with. Truly and honestly some of the nicest hand-dyed that I have put my hands on. I spun up enough so that I could 2-ply from a center pull ball and ended up with about 29 yards to play with: plenty for swatching.
My 2 ply turned out to be about 17 WPI -- pretty respectable for a sock yarn. For instance, STR Medium weight is about the same WPI. I like the handle of the yarn and it "feels right" to me. Since I was shooting for reproduceability, I took some notes about this yarn. As an aside, I got to see some real Sock Hop yarn courtesy of Cara, who was visiting Chicago this weekend. My yarn is quite different from the Sock Hop yarn as far as plying goes. I think I ended up with a tighter ply. Both are neat looking yarns. I think that is part of what is great about spinning your own, you can get so many looks from the same starting point.
For my three ply, I started out with the same ratio on my wheel (the 10:1) and spun onto 3 separate bobbins. That was when I realized I had a problem -- I had used all of my WooLee Winder bobbins and now had to go back to one of my Lendrum flyers to do the job, so I wouldn't be able to make the 3 ply using the same drive ratio as I had for the 3 ply. Note to self: 4 bobbins is better than three. So I ended up trying out my Lendrum fast flier to try to get a similar ratio. Not such a good idea because I over plied this poor yarn in a big way. I actually had to do some untwisting afterwards, which is why this yarn looks a little bit iffy.
When I measured the WPI on this yarn, I got 16, which isn't too surprising. I usually find that with the same diameter single, my 2 and 3 ply yarns are very similar at the WPI level, it's just the dimensionality that has changed.
But the real proof is in the swatch. So I knit up a test swatch from both yarns. The 2 ply swatch I knit on US size 1 needles, the 3 ply I knit on US size 1.5 needles to give the yarn a little more room to be lofty, while still maintaining a fabric similar to the density I would want for socks. I also put the 2 ply sock through a complete wash and dry cycle (standard washing conditions that my socks experience) to see how it held up to being washed.
The striping issue that Cheryl pointed out is absolutely true. The stripes are much more prominent in the 2 ply swatch than the three ply swatch. I also like the feel of the 2 ply yarn better both before and after washing. I've never been one to like really thick socks unless I am wearing big heavy boots and I don't do that very often. And after washing, while the yarn developed an ever-so-slight halo, it really didn't fuzz or felt at all. Nor did I experience a change in the size or gauge of the sample. I am ever so smitten with both the fiber and the resulting yarn. So I think that I will be going with a two ply yarn for this project.
I'm also pretty sure that I will be ordering more of this fiber... this swatch got a thumbs up from the husband as well (although not in such a bright color) so if I can find a colorway that meets his needs, I think he's going to get a pair of handspun, hand knit socks for Christmas.
One other thing came up in my first Sloopy post. Julie (blogless) mentioned that after washing her yarn, the orange bled and the white areas took up the orange dye. Teyani very quickly emailed me, Julie and her spinners to find out more about this since she was very concerned about the potential problem, even though Julie was not unhappy with the fiber at all (three cheers for Teyani for being so concerned about good customer experience!). Teyani is very careful about making sure her dye exhausts correctly and about rinsing carefully to get rid of free dye. As it turns out, Julie was soaking the yarn in hot water and using vinegar in the finish rinse. If you haven't ever done any dyeing yourself, you need to know two things: 1) sometimes hot water can cause dye to leach (it's good to be reasonably gentle with hand-dyed products when it comes to temperatures) and 2) vinegar sets dye. So if you work with hand-dyed fiber that has white intervals, be gentle on your fiber after you finish it and soak in cooler water and leave out that vinegar finish. I know a lot of sources recommend vinegar to help make sure your colors stay color fast, but you might want to save that advice for commercially prepared solid colored yarns.
So now it's time for me to get back to my wheel and let more of this wonderful fiber slip through my fingers!
After all was said and done, I ended up with almost 550 yards of three ply yarn from the 6 or so ounces of the Cormo/silk/alpaca singles that I spun. What was particularly satisfying for me after plying this yarn was that when I took it off my niddy noddy, it was almost perfectly balanced. When I hung the skein it hung straight. Once thing that surprised me was that, in spite of all the Cormo in the yarn (80%) it still was drapey and it almost felt like the inelastic silk and alpaca fibers were in control of the yarn, even though I felt like I had gotten a goodly amount of twist into the yarn.
As per usual, I could not resist using the macro mode on my camera to get a closer look at the yarn before and after a good soaking. In the past, when I've given yarn a bath, I often see a change. The sample above is the shot I took before the yarn got its bath.
The sample in this photo is the shot I took after the yarn got it's bath. After the bath when I hung this skein straight, I still didn't see any over twist. But the proof is in the drying, eh? Well that twist business did't change after the skein dried -- and I didn't try to bias it by weighting it in any way, I just let it hang down. I'm not sure if it shows up in the photos, but after drying, the elasticity and sproingy quality of the Cormo came back after the bath. The yarn has a bit more three dimesional quality. And, consistant with the rather large amount of noils that were in this fiber I was spinning from, you can see that the yarn has little imperfections that I hope will make it interesting rather than unpolished looking when I knit it up.
Weight-wise, I think this yarn is probably in the sport weight category... perhaps another small shawl with a lace pattern? I think the heathering is gorgeous and, lover of blue that I am, I could very much see this wrapped around my neck -- it's definitely soft enough for that.
Before I get started on my Crown Mountain Farm fiber, I decided that I would test out my WooLee Winder a little more thoroughly. I had a nice, mostly solid blue Cormo/silk/alpaca roving that I purchased from Winterhaven Fiber Farm while at MS&W that seemed like it would be a good starting point since I've spun Cormo/silk blends before and have a good feel for this sort of blend. Since I'm in a three-ply sort of mood these days, I figured I'd work out all three bobbins and then ply it on my Lendrum plying head.
I'm quite taken with how evenly the WooLee Winder bobbins get wound. They are even enough that, if you are lazy like me, and forget to weigh out your fiber into equal amounts, you can actually just measure the radius of the bobbin relative to the single to get a sense for how much more you need to spin.
I bought this roving because I love Cormo and because I was looking for fiber that wouldn't give me stripes after it was spun (let me tell you, when you spin variagated rovings, it's a lot harder to prevent stripes than you might think). The singles have nice subtle color changes which should add depth to the plied yarn without creating any crazy striping. I don't know quite what I see this yarn becoming yet, probably some lacy accessory but having it be a mostly solid yarn gives me lots more options.
Not a stunningly wonderful picture -- I know -- but it does demonstrate how the blues go together. It's also all I had the energy to take a picture of after doing the spinning. The first 3/4 of the plying went fine but the last 1/4 was an exercise in frustration until I gave up my Lendrum lazy kate and resorted to three metal needles spearing a shoebox. When the bobbins were in a vertical orientation, the single seemed to get caught at the "top" once there wasn't much left on the bobbin (I am still not sure I understand why... I don't know if it was the angle I was drawing the single from or something else). This meant that one of the plies would break if I pulled to hard, or I had to stop and manually rotate the bobbin so that it would get past that point, which got to be very unsatisfying. When I switched to my inelegant but functional shoe box, where the bobbins were in a horizontal orientation, everything moved much more smoothly. I've never experienced anything like that with my Lendrum bobbins. I will have to talk to my Dad about helping me to create some kind of box that has a tensioning system so that the bobbins don't roll backwards when the single stops moving.
Other than that, my WooLee Winder performed wonderfully. It made this 6 ounces of fiber just sort of fly by, in spite of the fact that this fiber was a little bit too noil-y for my taste (not as bad as the madder/cochineal Corriedale, but not as smooth as some other fibers I have spun). Now that I've put it through it's paces, I think that I'm ready to give my "Hang On Sloopy" superwash a try.
