Did you know?

That there is such a thing as navajo 4 ply? Yeah, I didn’t either until recently. Of course, once I read about it, I determined I’d need to try it as soon as possible.

The concept is simple. You chain ply while holding a separate single at the same time and plying it in. I decided to try it with my saxon wool spin. I’d spun forever on the singles, as they drafted out quite thin. On Sunday I had time to ply on my wheel.

The concept may be simple. The execution a bit more like spinning performance art. Slightly pointless but pretty cool. It all goes well if you can set the separate single to the side, away from the single that you are chain plying. If they mingle, things get ugly quickly and there is really no returning from it. Suddenly it seems more like auto wrapped art yarn.

I was able to estimate fairly well though, as to how fast my chain ply single was being used up, and toward the end, I could see I’d have a ton left over of the separate single. So I just switched the single I was chain plying toward the end, and ended up with less than half a yard of leftover singles. That was amazing.

I really am not sure that I’ll try this little trick again, but it was fun to experiment with. The resulting yarn really isn’t the prettiest. It isn’t terribly well spun. But it is soft and I like the natural color and I am very glad I gave it a try.

I now have 212 yards of 4 ply (or 2 ply since one is chained?) and a new trick under my belt.

 

 

A Weekend of Spinning

This entire weekend consisted of spinning. While Bug is feeling better now, we just stayed in and stayed relaxed. The weather was beautiful on Sunday and so I finished spinning the merino/tencel singles I started Saturday morning. And grabbed a photo.

 

I did get these plied as well, but apparently tencel takes a long time to dry, as well as being limp.

The Latest Fiber on the Wheel

After finishing the lemony gradient, I made the decision to remove and spin anything in my stash that I truly disliked spinning. This, for the most part, includes bamboo and tencel blends. Thankfully, once I looked through my stash, I realized I only have 2. One a tencel blend and the other a bamboo blend. The one I chose first is Chameleon Colorworks, and I’ve had it in my stash since 2007 or 2008. It is high time to spin it anyhow!

In braid form, I actually didn’t realize, in all these years, that there is some green in there! It is almost entirely hidden by the label. So, actually spinning this has been a bit of a surprise, colorwise. Though not irritation wise, quite frankly.

While I always tell people that there is no “hard’ fiber to spin (with perhaps the exception of dryer lint or dust bunnies, but that hardly counts) I do think spinners should try all manner of fibers and then make their preferences, realizing that those preferences may change in time.

My preference is that I choose to avoid bamboo and tencel. I don’t like the way the yarn finishes up, as beautiful as it may be. I don’t like the way it spins up, the artificial nature of it messes with how the wool acts and I don’t care for that. It isn’t a problem of being difficult, though it takes getting used to, the problem is more how the fiber acts. It acts limp. I guess you could call it drapey, but I am going to call it limp.

(Please don’t let this stop you from trying it, try it, you might like it. Like some people enjoy eating chocolate covered locusts and all…just those some people aren’t me.)

In any case, I began spinning this braid yesterday morning as there is a nasty little noro virus going around, and I am not talking the yarn brand type, and poor Bug has been very ill. Her desire to sleep in my bed and be left alone equals coffee and spinning time on my porch.

I’d say it is going pretty well. For chocolate covered locusts, that is.

Dyeabolical Rolags All Spun Up

Due to the pink and purple toned rolags being a color combo I wasn’t sure was going to go well together if striping, and being that I had so many colors in a small amount of singles, I decided to make a 4 ply for this yarn. I must say, it worked out very well in this case. I love that the brights were all toned down with the addition of the darker purple throughout the skein. While it didn’t seem like there was all that much sparkle in the rolags themselves, the entire skein does have quite a bit of sparkle in it, and it looks evenly distributed, rather than all clumpy.

All in all, while I was quite hesitant awhile ago about rolags from blending boards, I am officially sold on them. Not sold enough to purchase a blending board, but sold enough to want to spin rolags from a board. I really enjoyed the experience, they drafted out so nicely with my support spindles, and the resulting yarn is quite interesting.

I ended up with 145 yards of 4 ply yarn. I’d say it is a fingering to sport weight yarn.

 

Good stuff!

Rolags

My dyeabolical rolags have all been spun. I do believe I’ll make this into a 4 ply. Why? Because there are so many colors in all different orders that I don’t believe I can possibly make heads or tails of them otherwise.

 

That being said, aren’t they bright and pretty?

All the Cool Toys

I’ve added to my collection of cool toys this month. From a destash, I picked up a pair of wool combs. I’ve desired them for ages now, but wasn’t ready to spend the cash on them. These just practically fell in my lap. While I received them on Monday, this week has been ridiculously busy and I wasn’t able to even touch them until Tuesday evening. I also spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I’d put on them. Then I remembered that one of my between ewe and me fiber club offerings was 4 oz of washed shetland wool. That seemed perfect. 

 

I loaded up my combs with gorgeous shetland locks and gave it a try. I was surprised at just how much VM these locks had in them. It wasn’t immediately apparent by looking at them, but combing wool does really make all the VM fall out of the locks. 

 

I combed according to the Benjamin Green Studio youtube video. It worked quite well though I’ll need a lot more practice. And it is my intention to watch a bunch of other wool combing videos since I think just going with one is unwise. Other people may have tips and tricks which are quite valuable. In fact, Susan McFarland’s video seems to get the results I would find ideal. 

In the end, I had 2 birds nests of fiber. One which is quite small as my first combing I was too nervous to put many locks on the combs, and the other a pretty normal sized next. 

 

The shetland, which was super light grey with brown tips, turned into a lovely blended beige. 

I don’t have time to work on this any more until at least the weekend, but I am eager to practice and make this part of my fleece prep routine. 

I still knit!

You know, each time I finish a large project and want to show it off, I feel the need to say that I still knit. Maybe you all know that, but it feels that I do so little of it that I am forced to say something about it.

In any case, I do. Once in awhile. It’s a bit of a struggle. I knit mostly during my lunch break at work. If I really want a project actually finished, that’s when I knit on it.

I finished a shawl I started in January. It was supposed to be an easy project. It was, until I got to the lace part. Then I struggled. And then I got sick of it, didn’t want to figure out the problem, and put it away for awhile. It didn’t cease to be a struggle when I started it again.

But, it is done now. The pink yarn is a hand dyed yarn I received from a local friend of mine. The brown is some early handspun that I spun ages ago. The shawl is actually rather nice. Hopefully I can get over the feeling of hating that particular knit by the fall so I can actually wear it.