# Spinning questions - fleece, roving, yarn



## featherbottoms (May 28, 2005)

Some questions for you spinners.

Would 5 oz of roving equal 5 oz of finished yarn?

Do any of you spin fine Merino wool?

Do any of you do contract spinning?

Can you spin the above fine Merino into a fingerling weight?

Can you approximate how many yards would be in 5 oz of roving handspun into a fingerling weight? I'm not going to assume it's the same as machine spun.

Should I look for raw fleece or washed/cleaned roving?

Would the roving need to be dyed or natural? Or is that a preference on my part? Or would it be better to dye the yarn after it's in skein form?

If I want to have someone spin roving into yarn for me, did I miss any questions?

edited to add:

If I wanted someone to take a raw fine Merino fleece and turn it into spun fingerling yarn, would that take forever??

Approximately how long would it take to spin 5 oz of roving?

Thanks!

fb


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## romysbaskets (Aug 29, 2009)

5 oz of roving will equal 5 ozs of yarn provided there is not VM in it that counts against that weight. There are lots of ladies on here that spin on spinning wheels to a fine fingerling weight. I am not sure if they contract but I would say yes there are some who would. From all the examples on here, I would say it would be better dyed as Roving. I know that they spin Merino to a fine yarn but I don't know the yardage. I am using a drop spindle and am new to spinning. I am sure they will chime in for you! Happy crafting!


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## Taylor R. (Apr 3, 2013)

Whether you want raw fleece or roving really depends on whether you want to clean and card it up yourself (for raw fleece), or you want a ready to spin product. If you're looking for someone to spin it, that's something you could work out with them. 

You can dye either the roving or the yarn, either way is totally acceptable. The dying process can make roving a little more coarse and therefore not as nice to work with in my opinion (not always true, and I still buy dyed roving, so it doesn't make _that_ big a difference to me, but I'm new to this, too).


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## featherbottoms (May 28, 2005)

Wind in Her Hair said:


> are you sure you want the fiber to be prepared as roving? and not top? Top produces one kind of finished product and roving produces another. Top is best spun and finished worsted for a smooth, dense, durable yarn and roving is best spun and finished woolen for a lofty, fluffy, light and airy yarn. Also, you need to decide how many plies you want.


No, I'm not sure I want roving vs top. Since I don't spin I don't know what the difference would be with the end product. Ya'll speak a different language than weavers 

This is what I want:

ultra fine yarn, no bigger than 2 ply, possibly 3, depending on the end weight. Not sewing thread thin, and probably not lace weight, but at least fingerling weight. I'd like a silk and ultra fine Merino blend of about 60/40, wool to silk.

OR

the same thing only in a Cashmere / silk blend.

I am very fond of those three fibers.

And if I can buy the top or roving and get someone here on HT to spin it for me, maybeI can get exactly what I want. Or maybe someone on here even has the raw fleece, top, or roving.

In the end, I want a soft, luxury fiber for a garment I want to try to make. Something comparable to the fiber in the link I posted in the other thread here 

http://www.homesteadingtoday.com/co...rn-size-wt-conversion-uk-metric-american.html

I hope that helps.

fb


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## featherbottoms (May 28, 2005)

I guess I'll have to actually watch spinning in progress to actually understand what you mean about the way roving vs top looks and feels.

And as for the ply, maybe that depends on the yarn? I am holding a ball of Elsebeth Lavold Silky Flamme that's 50% Peruvian Wool, 30% FS Alpaca and 20% silk. It's a beautiful 2 ply yarn. This is the description of the ply:

[FONT=comic sans ms, sans-serif]_Silky Flamme _is constructed of an untwisted core strand wrapped by a lovely thick & thin ply for added texture & variety.[/FONT]

There's nothing flat about this particular 2 ply yarn. I have about 1,000 or 1,200 yards of it that I am trying to decide what to do with right now. I think it's too soft for a garment and am leaning towards a nice shawl but can't quite decide how to use the two colors.

But what I really want is some nice soft ultra fine merino and silk to play with. And I'd love for one of you to spin it for me - once I figure out what I need.


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## featherbottoms (May 28, 2005)

Ah, I see. I told you I don't know the difference in what you spinners do with yarn. I know when I like a particular yarn I don't usually pay attention to the type, except for the content, so I could be using a 2 ply artyarn or a 6 ply traditional yarn, and I just want the "feel" and "hand" to be what I want.


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## featherbottoms (May 28, 2005)

Wind in Her Hair said:


> http://abbysyarns.com/2008/12/singles-two-ply-three-ply-and-wraps-per-inch
> 
> this is a really good article on the differences in plies and wpi. Food for more thought!


See, that's a very good reason why I let ya'll do the spinning.


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## frazzlehead (Aug 23, 2005)

Your best bet to get everything in 'common terms' is to use wraps per inch.

Take a ruler and wrap a sample yarn that is the weight you are after around the ruler, no tension, just gently wrapped. Snug the wraps next to each other and then count how many loops you made in each inch: that's "wraps per inch". That is something we can all measure on ANY yarn, whether it comes from a store or off a wheel.

Then specify your blend - cashmere/silk, or ultrafine merino/silk and your percentages (though 40% silk is a LOT of silk) ... and you can probably find someone to spin it for you.

I have to warn you that the cost for custom spinning is likely to seem rather exorbitant ... it takes a long time to spin fine, spinning is usually charged on a per metre (per yard) basis, plus the materials. I would charge on the order of 5 cents/metre for fine, even singles (less if it can be 'textured', more if it's art yarn as that takes a lot of focus believe it or no), and that's per ply: so if in the end you have 500 metres of 2 ply, you are paying for 1000 metres of spinning. 

If ya still want it, though, we can certainly talk! I can probably source the raw materials you are interested in, and send you some samples so you can choose. If you already have the extrafine fleece and want it processed from raw, well, then there's the cost of fleece prep ... which is a big job, though do-able, and probably charged by the ounce. Hand processing would be best left up to the spinner to decide how they wanted to do it - if you're sending it to a mill, you get whatever the mill can produce (most mills here make roving not top). If you are buying the fibre from a fibre provider (i.e. a fibre store), then you can talk to them about what they have available.


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## featherbottoms (May 28, 2005)

frazzlehead, thank you for this. I ordered yarn from several different places today. I'm going to try my garment design idea on some commercially spun yarn first, since it's a bit less expensive. If I like the way it turns out I need to get a bit better at my weaving before I spend money on the real luxury fibers, and/or have what I want to use handspun.

That price of 5 cent a meter, is that Canadian or U.S. prices?


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## frazzlehead (Aug 23, 2005)

Good idea to test it with commercial yarn for starters!

And yep, that's Canadian - though at current exchange rates they're not off by much! You may find other spinners who work for less, too, that's just so you have a ballpark number.


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## romysbaskets (Aug 29, 2009)

5 ozs of the roving I made with Suffolk wool which was heavy with a strong fiber that stayed together and yes it did equal just about 5 ozs of yarn, very very close to. I am not covered in fiber after hours of spinning with my spindle. Now I am new to this and did process a 17 lb raw fleece into roving myself with a bit of research and reading the ladies suggestions here. Today I decided to carefully look at my clothing and the chair to test this out after reading others have it all over themselves, nope. I just found one tiny smidge less then the size of a pea which was all I had on me after going through many baby batts of spinning. When I made my roving, I worked very hard to make it smooth, with very few little tiny balls which eliminated that waste I guess I might have had while spinning... if find any little tiny balls while spinning, they are easily manipulated in my nails to become part of my yarn. I bet with a spinning wheel it is different plus with different types of natural fibers. I have not dyed any fiber yet..still having fun with natural colors..The suffolk wool was three different colors, white, creme and different shades of yellow.


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## frazzlehead (Aug 23, 2005)

Romysbaskets, much of what you 'lose' in spinning doesn't end up on your body or your chair, but on the floor - where you yank it off on purpose because it made a lump in your finely spun yarn, or because you hit a noil and had to pick it out.

It varies with the fibre and the prep - commercial prep, I hardly lose anything, but hand processed (well, hand processed by me, I'm not really particular about my processing) you will lose a lot first in the processing (if I comb, I lose probably 30% or more, and that's AFTER picking out the stuff I don't want to deal with - of course what's left is marvellous and I won't lose much more). Still, there is usually a good handful of fluff on the floor around me after I spin - IF I am trying to spin evenly. 

If I'm going for textured, then it doesn't happen as much as I have less need to yank off bits that weren't working, I incorporate them into the 'design'. Except neppy bits, second cuts, etc - those always have to come out. 

Depends on the fibre, on the prep, and on what you're spinning. 

But yep - I have often spun up 100 grams of very well processed fibre and gotten 100 grams of yarn ... or near enough that the scale couldn't tell the difference anyhow. So it does happen.


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## romysbaskets (Aug 29, 2009)

frazzlehead said:


> Romysbaskets, much of what you 'lose' in spinning doesn't end up on your body or your chair, but on the floor - where you yank it off on purpose because it made a lump in your finely spun yarn, or because you hit a noil and had to pick it out.
> 
> That is all I meant above, I made my roving carefully, the waste was in the processing prior to I guess. I don't have anything hit the floor when I spin because it has almost no tiny balls (I call them) in it and I work those out with my nails and spin them in...As to lumps, mine came out like cotton, I was very happy with the roving part. I am not even close on the spinning yet...but working on it. . I hand processed the Suffolk Wool and spent many hours doing it to make very fluffy great roving. The post I had on the Marshmellow sheep has a pic of the roving I made. The yarn is much heavier then the alpaca I have that is the same thickness. It stays together so well. The length of some of the fiber was 10 inches long, does that help? The only thing I have picked out of the roving were these tiny black hairs that came in the raw fleece. I thought you were supposed to work in those little tiny balls there are so few, they were easy for me to work apart and spin in evenly. My yarn is not a lovely super thin yarn like all of yours yet so I think that is why I can conceal them so easy.


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## frazzlehead (Aug 23, 2005)

You have it right: most of the loss is in prep. Well prepped fibre = less loss in spinning. 

As for spinning in or yanking out the lumps, it (like everything in fibre arts) depends... on the yarn you are spinning, the nature of the lump, the type of fibre. 

But if someone bought me a 100g bag of fibre to spin into yarn, and it was all nicely prepped, I'd say they were not allowed to fuss if they got back 95g instead of exactly 100. Sometimes things happen and you lose a smidgen, so it's always best to have a wee but extra to start with. I think that's mostly where we were going with this.


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## romysbaskets (Aug 29, 2009)

frazzlehead said:


> You have it right: most of the loss is in prep. Well prepped fibre = less loss in spinning.
> 
> As for spinning in or yanking out the lumps, it (like everything in fibre arts) depends... on the yarn you are spinning, the nature of the lump, the type of fibre.
> 
> But if someone bought me a 100g bag of fibre to spin into yarn, and it was all nicely prepped, I'd say they were not allowed to fuss if they got back 95g instead of exactly 100. Sometimes things happen and you lose a smidgen, so it's always best to have a wee but extra to start with. I think that's mostly where we were going with this.


I think 95% is a great return, I keep wondering how you ladies do that really thin yarn? I have not gotten there on the spindle yet but after my scarf is done, I will try it out again extra thin. Wow I can see a spinning wheel in my future. Fluffs of fiber floating around sounds like such fun! Snowing in the cabin....LOL How much does it cost to have someone spin yarn from fiber into the fine two ply you make? i have seen video on youtube of spinners with their wheels going fast! That must make drafting properly a must! Boy will I need to practice!


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