Ep 152: Sailing on with Gentle Morning

Dear Spinning Circle,

Thank you for being here today, especially those who were able to make it to the Live Stream. I appreciate your time spent here in this place with me. I hope you feel most welcome because you are welcome here. Enjoy the show!

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ONGOING Yarn Substitution Content – May – August 2020

Q&A Sessions for our YARN SUB content! A new tier is active on Patreon for those wishing to participate in Q&A sessions for the YARN SUB content! 

Be sure to sign up for the Wool n’ Spinning Newsletter at welfordpurls.com. 

For a softcover copy of How I Spin: A Sock Study, check here. 

Unbraided: The Art & Science of Spinning Colour – EBOOKS available here & book orders can be made here. 

Community Participation

PLEASE NOTE THAT SHIPPING WILL BE DELAYED FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE DUE TO ACCESS ISSUES.

For April and May, James and I have been carding up a storm and we would like to send out a batt made from the Friesian wool to someone in our community! It is a spongy, downy wool in dark brown and spins like a dream – more on it in the show today! What do you love about the Down breeds?

Book Club

#booksbooksbooks channel on Slack

As a community, we are delving into a Jane Austen Book Club. We will be reading Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen. Reading can begin anytime and @bethy40 (Becca) in our community will be coordinating Zoom Book Clubs for us to meet within to discuss chunks of the book at a time. 

Made with Love – ALONG

Community-wide call to everyone in the community to participate in our Crafty Jaks Along to honour some of the people in our community! Cast on date: April 1st, 2020 with cast off deadline July 31st, 2020

Prizes! There will be fun prizes! Read the post linked above for details!

This is a time to do what we do best and get creative. This is the time to make and lift up others – please read Rebecca’s blog post to learn more about this Makealong and event if you would like to learn more about the creation of this amazing event.

Excited to be casting on with Katrina’s B-fabu-licious yarn in an OOAK that she had in stock (that I love) and making Anker’s Cardigan by PetiteKnits, a PURELY selfish knit at this time!

Rebecca (@rebbiejaye, post no. 191) shares:

I have finished my contribution – A Sign of Spring is off the needles! I wrote all about it here: sorry i’m feeling a bit… feely… today. Thanks Kelly for the lovely pattern and Katrina for the gorgeous yarn. I think I might pack it up and send it to my mom for a belated Mother’s Day gift, if I can wrench it away from my seven-year-old….

51 Yarns SAL – Community-Wide Participation (2019 – 2022)

51 Yarns – Group A – Tips & Butts

Megan (@lykkemeg, post no. 952) shares:

Ok guys. I’m working ahead because I had the fiber and opportunity to do these spins, and I wanted to write about them before I forgot about my reflections! so here you go!

Fiber: 100% CVM

Wheel: flatiron 17:1

Structure: I got this beautiful grey CVM fleece from a local farm that is moving. I really wanted to just spin some, so I grabbed some locks and flicked them in the grease, then spun them, one yarns butts, one yarn tips. They are both small samples of 2 ply plied from a center pull ball (which I agree, left each ply slightly uneven, so not my go to). These were spun semi worsted with some air but some smoothing.

Reflections: So, here is my overarching theory of spinning…. Just my opinion, not gospel…. I like to think that every old “rule” of spinning has a reason. I’m never a spinning guru about “following the rules”, I am more a “do what you want” type of person, however, I think that humans who spun for 10s of thousands of years became extremely efficient and good at what they were doing, as you would do if you were forced to handspin every item you owned. So, I think that every older “rule” of spinning out there exists because in one ancient situation, with one type of tool and one type of fiber, it really was the most efficient way to get the best product. You can see this with spindle development, right? Short staple fibers like yak, or cotton developed around supported spindles. So, whenever I am approaching either a new fiber or a new tool, I ask myself what did the ancient people do with this fiber and tool, and I replicate it. It doesn’t mean I always stay there, but it is my starting point.

So, that is my theory with butts and tips. I do think it really matters if your ancient material is long wools. If you match them up, and rewind them, I think they are especially smoother and nicer. I have done this in the past, and this is the only time I have ever really cared about doing this. What I have never done is tried butts and tips on a fine wool, hence, the CVM. So, the yarn and sample with the BLUE tags is the butts, and the yarn and sample with the YELLOW tag is the tips. Honestly, I tried to make myself believe, that one was smoother or felt different than the other, but I would really be exaggerating, they really feel the same to my sensitivities. So, there you have it. I don’t think you need to worry about butts and tips with fine wools, and I probably won’t…..but that’s just me…..I think you should spin whatever way is satisfying to you I’d love to know if anyone has a different experience! this was only one experiment!

51 Yarns – Group B – Double-Coated Wools

Linnea (@LBmbirds, post no. 356) shares:

Klövsjöfår is a Swedish breed. And actually the wool that Got me into spinning. We were participants at a viking event In 2016 and our neighbour had this wool from her newly sheared sheep.

I combed it with my viking combs( a reconstruction My boyfriend had made for me) and was spinning on My one and only drop spindle i owned back then. During The event i was trying to get The hang of it. Maybe not The best wool to begin with. And In addition it was not washed. Well we do not know what we do not know.

I have combed a lot, spun a lot and it is my go too wool when at viking markeds to show and tell how The vikings prepared their wool. Now this will be My first time spinning it washed and on a wheel. It was a game changer with the wool washed. It was like working with fairy like hair. I now have 6 bobbins with samples of different kinds. I spun the outer hairs to two bobbins. One S and one Z and my plan is to weave a sample with the two singles. I then handcrafted the two together with quite some difficulty.

It became rolags and for the first time I spun long draw. Because the prep was so poorly done, hence my little knowledge. I just focused on the long draw technique rather than trying to get a nice yarn. Cause that was not possible. There was a lot more outer wool than inner wool, so at some point I will pick another breed and do the same. to get a bigger sample of the inner wool.

I carted the inner wool into rolags, where I practiced long draw. And I keep thinking : just trust the twist! This came out very nice and I like the long draw method. When doing this study I stumbled upon a different technique to spin the two wools together. And just had to try it. A Swedish spinner, Josephin Waltin inspired me to give it another go. And thank god I did, this yarn is just beautiful. With some practice a lot of time and patience this would be my way forward in spinning the two wools together. So first carefully card the tip, then the bottom pull out the shorter fibers and placing them so you can spin from both at the same time. My weaving sample is not going so well. Note to self! It might be a better idea to have spun this worsted, to avoid all the ends sticking out wanting to hug and grab anything getting near it. Lesson learned ;-)

Thanks so much for sharing Everyone!

Make NINE Progress

Making some changes to my projects that I would like to make this year, based on some purchases from ‘Fibres West’ last weekend & thinking about what I would like to make, wear & add to my wardrobe.

Many recent changes have resulted in some major purging of my closet so I have been thinking about what I’d like to add & make!

Thoughts have lead me to some simple, cropped sweaters & some really lovely lace, open-front cardigans that can double as ‘jackets’ in the Spring and Fall

Make Nine Ravelry page Part I and II – changing & fluid project page as things progress, my thoughts solidify & I think about what to commit to going forward

Works in Progress – Knitting

Gentle Morning by Trin-Annelie

• handspun Cheviot spin, project page here 
• separated for the yoke, knitting body — very fast knitting
• separated early for yoke due to slight difference in row gauge

Vellichor by Andrea Mowry

• Crafty Jaks Tough & Tender in ‘Ocean’ and handspun Targhee/Bamboo/Silk in ‘Pesuta’
• Started on 3.25mm/US 3 needles
• Relaxed knitting, taking my time, no deadlines

Works in Progress – Spinning

Three Waters Farm & Unlabelled 100% Falkland – Combo Spin

• Ashford eSpinner – mindless spin – finished 1st bobbin!
• Aiming for 18WPI for a finished 11WPI DK yarn
• Don’t want tons of yardage – would like to make a good-sized shawl
• Stash busting – #groomyourstash with Sasha of Sheepspot

Friesian Fleece – Sampling for the Shore Cardigan by Carrie Bostick Hoge

• James is helping me to card it all — very downy and spongy
• Lovely dark brown with heathering from the lighter tips
• Pulled off 2nd skein – 15% again in the washing, total 420 yards towards total spin (1100 yards goal for sweater)
• Spun to a DK (11 WPI) and very light to the hand – sample is just a few grams
• Knit sample on 5.00mm, 4.5mm, 4,00mm needles

Thank you so much for joining me today! 

Until then, Happy Spinning!