# Whatcha spinning lately?



## frazzlehead (Aug 23, 2005)

I love to see pictures of what people are spinning - gets me in a spinning mood myself!

Today I found some black curly long staple wool that someone gave me .. don't remember what it was, but it was lovely. Combed and carded that, blended in some red soy silk (I think that's what it is, not sure) and spun that up - then spun up another bobbin of black suri alpaca/cashmere that my sister and brother in law gave me for my birthday and plyed them together.

Voila, yarn.

What does it wanna be? 200 g total, fairly loosely spun and plied.










What have you been spinning?


----------



## gone-a-milkin (Mar 4, 2007)

Lovely yarn, Frazzlehead. I think it would be very nice for mittens/gloves. 
Good dirt-hiding colors. 


I am inbetween spinning projects, ATM.
I can feel that Shetland fleece from Marci beaconing to me 
and I also have some superwashed rovings that I want to try my new dye colors on.

Today I cranked a pair of socks rather than decide on anything. :teehee:
I might give my skinned knuckles and cracked fingers a bit of a rest this week and stick to knitting.
Doubleshift milking and spinning projects dont go hand-in-hand. <groan>

My boss's son had some surgery and *this* is why I am called the 'relief' milker, I guess.
11 cows fresh since thursday night. (Including Little Miss Swat the Machine Off, for those who know of her).

My hands are messed up. :sob:


----------



## Ana Bluebird (Dec 8, 2002)

Very nice, Frazzle. I too am trying to spin up the older roving that I have---some as much as 5 years old---need to get it done up before it turns into felt. I really like your colors.


----------



## gone-a-milkin (Mar 4, 2007)

WIHH, when are you going to show us that qiviut yarn? <taps foot impatiently>


----------



## MullersLaneFarm (Jul 23, 2004)

I spinning a blend of fine wools that I dyed & carded up a couple years ago. I'm aiming for a 3-ply lace weight (sock weight at the most) yarn to try out Frazzle's new shawl pattern.


----------



## Marchwind (May 10, 2002)

WIHH you should knit him a Qiviut thong. Don't laugh. There was a teacher in Bemidji who x-country skied for competition. One year he skied the Birkibinder (sp) and when he finished he go into the truck and bit the steering wheel because his nether regions were frozen. He still has the teeth marks in the steering wheel. Now this is a guy who lived in Alaska prior to moving to Bemidji. So Karen (my best friend) and I made him an angora, alpaca, silk, and wool Jock strap/thong. I blended the fibers and spun then and she knit it. Apparently it worked great but it was never modeled for us :teehee: I'm just saying that little piece might be the most valuable to him. Maybe ask or have Cabin do it.


----------



## Marchwind (May 10, 2002)

Well ask Cabin if he can imagine freezing himself (and I mean frozen). Then ask him what he thinks of the idea. I bet he likes it


----------



## PKBoo (Apr 10, 2008)

A guy I work with wants one of these:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/62420152/grey-beardo-bearded-toque

So I'm spinning some black Shetland/BFL that I left in the fermented suint vat for 6 weeks two summers ago , blended with black alpaca:










I was shooting for worsted weight yarn for one pattern, but just found a pattern I like better that calls for bulky weight. So I may have to spin another bobbin thicker, and ply them together. We'll see - this is a fun quick knit, so I'm happy to play with it.

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/bearded-beanie-3


----------



## hercsmama (Jan 15, 2004)

Here's my latest attempt.

It's an alpaca/ merino blend.


----------



## Callieslamb (Feb 27, 2007)

Hercsmama - how do you get your colors to do that?

I actually spun some decent thin brown yarn- 2 ply. I'm very happy with it. I don't have a picture because it's still on the bobbins....or that's my excuse. I found that buying cheap rovings isn't good. I thought cheap was best for a beginner and I am learning through using it. I'm not afraid to 'damage' or 'ruin' it. But there are neps and noils in there that make drafting smoothly a challenge as well as keeping the yarn spun even all the way through. It time to try some combed merino I bought at the FF to see if I can get it more evenly spun.


----------



## hercsmama (Jan 15, 2004)

Trust me, I have nothing to do with it. It must be the roving I bought as this is my second serious attempt. I still barely know what I'm doing! Lol


----------



## frazzlehead (Aug 23, 2005)

Callieslamb said:


> I thought cheap was best for a beginner and I am learning through using it. I'm not afraid to 'damage' or 'ruin' it. But there are neps and noils in there that make drafting smoothly a challenge as well as keeping the yarn spun even all the way through.


Both things are true - smooth, well prepped roving is easier to spin into something even. But spinning with less-than-perfect roving teaches you to work around the neps and noils, and (if you are willing to just "go with the flow") to see just how perfect the singles need to be to make respectable finished yarn. (Pro tip: it's nowhere near as perfect as you probably think).

_Aside: I intend to spin up some 'less than perfect singles', and then wind them on a card ... then ply them, and wind that on a card ... then wet finish it, and wind that on a card, and then knit a swatch. At each step of the process the "horrible lumps" and "awful inconsistencies" get less and less noticeable, and in the end, you just end up with a pretty, textured, interesting piece of knitting. Again, there is a "lower limit" to this process, but I've watched spinners pick at microscopic lumps in their singles that won't even be there once the wool's been plyed and washed once. This is something you can definitely experiment with if you have less-than-perfect wool prep to play with!_

REALLY neppy noily wool will not spin well no matter what you do, so there is a 'lower limit' of what is workable. But a batt, say, with a few second cuts and a bit of VM encourages you to learn to draft across the top, to split your batts, to find out exactly how much fibre you want to hold in your hand and how tightly or loosely. Combed top - which a lot of people love - I find really hard to spin, probably because I default to woolen not worsted inchworm spinning and cannot get it even without a lot of effort. It is challenging too - just in a different way.

I think it's best to start with something good and sproingy, a woolen prep, and probably in rovings or batts that you can tear apart. I've seen spinners who have only ever spun pencil roving and thus never learned to draft at all, spinners who have only ever spun top and thus cannot do anything but inchworm and spinners like me who spun almost exclusively woolen who have to work hard to learn worsted spinning.

Variety is good, before you get into ruts you can't easily get out of. Try some of each kind of prep - they all have something to teach you.

MHO anyway.


----------



## Marchwind (May 10, 2002)

Hercsmama lovely! Can you take a picture of the roving too? Your spinning is looking great too.


----------



## Callieslamb (Feb 27, 2007)

Thanks for all that info. I've found that I can draft with my other fingers if my thumb and forefinger are busy with the point of the draft - in case too many of the neps are too close together. I can spread them out with my fingers before they make it to the draft zone without stopping the wheel. Here's what I did yesterday. I'm afraid it's really going to bloom when I wash it. At least it isn't all twisty and kinky!


----------



## Pigeon Lady (Apr 4, 2004)

I love seeing what you all are spinning! hercsmama, that is nice. Has a tweedy look from the pic.

My Dad recently sent me some money to 'get yourself something". I immediately ordered that "Big Bag O'Crap" from the Sheep Shed Studio: 

http://www.thesheepshedstudio.com/specialoffers.html

5lbs of less than perfect mill end rovings. It arrived a couple of days ago and it's like Christmas!

I also bid on a yardage meter on ebay. I never know how much yarn I have in a skein.

Will take some pics tomorrow.

PS WIHH, google willy warmers ( I will NOT be knitting any!)


----------



## hercsmama (Jan 15, 2004)

:hysterical:
I'm not even going to tell dh about those! Knowing him, he'll want one! LOL!!!

Anyhoo, I lied. The roving is an 80/20 merino/ kid mohair, I got it from a place called Mountain Shadow Ranch. I believe it was on Ebay.....
She's very nice, and quick and obviously has a great product if a beginner like me can make it look decent!:cowboy:
Here's some pics of how it looks, pre-spun. If you click on the pics they get bigger..
This is the stuff I'm still working on, just a bit fluffed out of the bag.
Here it is a bit more fluffed up.
This is the other color I got from her.
All in all I got 16 oz. Two 4 oz pkgs of each color. I can't wait to see what the green turns into..


----------



## frazzlehead (Aug 23, 2005)

PKBoo - nice even singles you got there! Alpaca does want to be spun thin, doesn't it? 

Hercsmama, that is really pretty roving and nice yarn!

Callieslamb, I can't figure out why you'd be "afraid" the yarn would bloom - bloom is GOOD! The yarn will poof up and be all gorgeously air filled and warm and lofty. Nothing wrong with that! Just different from tight shiny worsted. You wouldn't want mittens or a big toque out of tight shiny worsted any more than you'd want a lace christening shawl out of bulky poofy woolen. Just gotta suit the yarn to the purpose - and that's lovely yarn!


----------



## hercsmama (Jan 15, 2004)

Stupid question time. What is a nep, and a noil?


----------



## Falls-Acre (May 13, 2009)

I can show a little of what I've learned here... but please ya'll correct me if I'm wrong. Neps are the little fluffs/poofs of fiber that sometimes occur after the fiber has been spun, they stick out from the spun thread. They can usually be pulled off (I think). Noils are what's left after combing fiber, they are the shorter bits that come out during combing that would be more likely incorporated if you carded a batt or rolag.


----------



## hercsmama (Jan 15, 2004)

:goodjob:Got it! Thanks so much!


----------



## Callieslamb (Feb 27, 2007)

frazzlehead said:


> ..........
> 
> Callieslamb, I can't figure out why you'd be "afraid" the yarn would bloom - bloom is GOOD! The yarn will poof up and be all gorgeously air filled and warm and lofty. Nothing wrong with that! Just different from tight shiny worsted. You wouldn't want mittens or a big toque out of tight shiny worsted any more than you'd want a lace christening shawl out of bulky poofy woolen. Just gotta suit the yarn to the purpose - and that's lovely yarn!


Because it makes the yarn so large that I can't find a pattern to knit out of it.

I have lots of fat yarn. I think I will make a few skeins into a shopping bag or two....but after that.....?????


----------



## frazzlehead (Aug 23, 2005)

Mittens! House socks! Slippers! Hats! Cowls! A vest!

Lots of choices.


----------



## hercsmama (Jan 15, 2004)

There is an adorable hat pattern in the One Skein Wonder book. I think its the first one.
It calls for bulky yarn on #10's. So cute. I made 7 of them as Christmas gifts,and all the girls went nuts for them.
If you want, pm me your email, and I'll share it with you.


----------



## Marchwind (May 10, 2002)

Callie I think your yarn looks really nice. I'm not sure how that could be a bulky yarn, if two strands laid across a penny look more like worsted weight. There are lots of things you can make. I like it! Oh, I have that book if you want to borrow it.


----------



## Callieslamb (Feb 27, 2007)

ues....and I can get your combs back to you. I agree, for me - this yarn looks great....but when I wash it, I hope it doesn't double in size.... LOL!!! My luck.

I'm working on some merino now. I can't get it thin enough to suit me. I think it's a bit overspun for the thickness. But it's still gonna look great!


----------



## Marchwind (May 10, 2002)

Callie you have my combs? No wonder I couldn't find them, lol! Well I'm glad I'm not truly going crazy :teehee:

Have you washed you yarn yet to see what happens?


----------

