Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Spinning "Flounce"

I'm not spinning my fiber of the month samples in order, I'm skipping ahead to December 2014.  This was my birthday month, and I got a very Rebecca colorway!   This is my 2nd Into the Whirled spinning project for January, so I am on track for keeping my subscription and reducing my fiber stash (*cough* and increasing my yarn stash while on a yarn diet *cough*)


I've never spun Corriedale before.  The name of the fiber was familiar and I couldn't quite place it.  It wasn't one of the fibers from the single breed yarns experiment, and since it hadn't shown up yet in my Into the Whirled subscription I was puzzled  I then realized that I had some in a batch of fiber I purchased from Webs ages ago.  I got a bunch of different fibers thinking that I would blend them with the chinchilla fiber Keith got me for Christmas, but then discovered that the purchased fiber came as roving already and that I didn't really want to disrupt it.  You might see me dyeing some Corriedale in the future!


My first attempt to split this yielded 51 g and 62 g.  Yikes!  Adjusted 57 and 55 g.  This is close enough!  I know that even when I am able to split the fiber evenly I don't spin evenly so there is only so much you can hope for. The day that I spin two singles that are exactly the same length will be the day that it rains skittles from the rainbow.


Recently I've been spinning on the slowest whirl (5:1) and I've been getting 2 ply worsted weight yarns.  I want to increase my speed and try the 8:1 and maybe I'll spin a thinner yarn.  Hopefully I won't over twist the yarn, as that has been my biggest issue when using the faster whorl in the past.


Teddle slowly, treddle slowly, Rebecca. I have no idea how this will hold up when it is time to ply, but for now it is going really well and I'm spinning the thinnest I've done in AGES.  The predrafted fiber is really thin, almost pencil roving like and I'm sure that is helping, too.  When I first attached the fiber to my leader yarn it spun SUPER SUPER tight and I was worried, but I just drafted out more fiber until there was less twist and continued on.


It isn't the softest yarn, but it is holding together really well.  There is good crimp to the fibers and it isn't slippery.


I'm a little nervous that this will die during plying.  If I pull on the single too hard it a bit it will break.  Although it hasn't broken thus far with the spinning so mabe it will be okay?  Please cross your fingers for me!!


Look at how much of the bobbin HALF of the fiber filled up!  This is a fluffy fiber,  or else I'm wonderful and didn't put too much twist in it.  Let's hope that there isn't too little twist in it so it breaks when plying or knitting!


One yard into spinning into the second half of singles and I got a break.  uhoh....  Soon I got my groove on.  I'm dividing the fiber much thinner this time (like I did at the beginning of round 1) so the color repeats will be shorter on average.  This should look cool when plyed together.


The second half looks smaller on the bobbin than the first half.  WPI #1 = 18  ; WPI #2 = 14-16

When I started plying I had two breaks right near the beginning, but the fiber is sticky enough that they were "fixed" easily.  I'm holding my breath here!  There was one more break later on, but given my fears from earlier on I'm really happy.


There wasn't as much left over from the first batch of plying as I thought.  I wound this into a center pull ball and then used both ends to make a miniskein.


When plying I was surprised how often the long stretches of color lined up.  There is still a ton of character so I'm not disappointed by any stretch.   (When winding the yarn onto my niddy noddy there was less lining up than I thought.)  I'm so glad that I'm not N-plying this yarn.  The singles have so single spin that i think they would break a TON if I was chaining it like that.  I'm not consistent with the amount of twist per inch on the plying, but it looks really cool so I'm happy.

I'm not the biggest fan of the big white patches.  The whites are slightly yellow which doesn't really do much for the purples and blues.  If it were a bluer or pinker white, then it would be really cool.    To my eye, these solid portions stick out like a sore thumb.


Large Skein: 157 wraps * 4 ft/ wrap = 628 ft = 209 yards.  107 g
Small Skein: 17 wraps * 2 ft/wrap = 34 ft = 11 yards.  6 g
12 WPI (DK weight)


200+ yards isn't bad at all, but to quote the little mermaid "I want moooooooore!"  One of these days I'm going to order a second bag of fiber so I can have 200g and spin enough yarn to knit into a luxurious cowl.

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Spinning started 1/15/2015 
First half finished 1/16/2015
Second half finished 1/16/2015
Spinning Completed 1/17/2015