WnS Ep. 186: All the Romney & Finn!

Dear Spinning Circle,

Live Stream: Saturday, February 6th @ 8:30am PST

Direct YouTube link here.

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. You are most welcome. I hope you feel most welcome because you are welcome here.

Enjoy the show!

Live Chat Assistance here.

There is a lot going on in our community! It’s a lot to cover and remind you of each week. Have a look here for more info!!

If you are curious about what happens in our community, please click the links below, reach out to me: rachel @ welfordpurls (dot) com, or reach out on Instagram/Ravelry/Slack (if you are a Patreon member, @welfordpurls_admin).

On & Off the Needles & Bobbins

Finished Yarns – Spinning

Small Bird Workshop Romney – Majacraft Suzie Pro 20:1; long draw; 3-ply for Natural Shades ALONG (possibly)

Works in Progress – Spinning

Disdero Ranch Romney batt – Ashford e-Spinner 3; short forward draft; carded preparation

Kingdom Fleece & Fiber Works Finn / Silk – Lendrum DT 18:1; long draw; 3-ply for Natural Shades ALONG

Finished – Weaving

Silk Sampler – Sanjo Silk – Tabby Weave – mixture of silks that I’ve spun recently; plain weave sampler

Radiant Towels – SweetGeorgia pattern – 2/8 cotton gradient, sett 18EPI & 18PPI

In Progress – Knitting

Catedral Pullover by Ewe Knit Toronto

• Got gauge with 3-ply CVM fleece; long draw; tightly plied (twist angle ~45)
• Construction – bottom-up, twisted rib with charts

Community Participation

For February, tell us about your GARMENT FITTING ISSUES — share in the episode thread here or comment below here on YouTube!

January’s Fibre will be mailed out to Jennifer Olson – commented on YouTube: My most recent spin is a two ply worsted merino.  One strand is kind of a jade blue, and the other strand a transition from yellow to pink to purple.   Makes this a pastel gradient/ color change.  Have yet to give it a finishing wash and not sure what I’ll make out of it yet but enjoyed seeing it evolve from colorful piles of “fluff”.  Thanks for continuing to inspire all of us to keep growing and learning. Stay safe and hope all will be well.

Breed & Colour // Shetland

Martha (@MarthaMew) shares via Slack: This is part 1 of my Shetland study! I dyed this fiber myself, and had great fun doing it! I added each strip of each colour into the dye pot at the same time so they are all exactly the same. I then took the 3 braids, and took a strip off each (strip being maybe 1/4 of the total width of the braid). Each of those strips I then stripped again into 3 and spun each colour way to its own bobbin from the same end of the strips each time. (Difficult to describe, easy to do!). These were my bobbins! And then finally, I did a 3ply taking 1 strand from each bobbin to create this 15wpi (heavy fingering/sport) yarn! 56g, but I’m still bad at calculating grist or even the length, but here it is!

Luxury Fibres ALONG

Sherri (@prairiefirebird) shares: Started spinning up my wild silks for the luxury fiber spin. Started with Muga spinning up one small bobbin of singles on an antique wheel, then plied in 2 ply. Now working on the Tasar or Tussah top. Sweaty hands are not a good thing when spinning this stuff – darn hot flashes! Wild silk spin study | Muga – staple length varies from 2 to 10 inches. Spins fairly easily from lengths of top end to end. Fairly flyaway and needs to be handled lightly while spinning to avoid fiber waste. Natural golden color with luster. Spinning methods tried include short forward, short backward, longdraw, and staple length folded over the finger. Preferred longdraw and short backward. Lovely fiber! Tussah – staple length 3 to 12.5 inches. Spins easily from lengths of top, but found fiber very airy and flyaway so preferred short lengths striped in half. Also need to handle minimally to avoid waste. Spinning methods tried include short forward, short backward, longdraw, and staple length folded over the finger. Preferred short forward to short backward with a very gentle hold of fiber in non-drafting hand. Lovely natural light golden color with luster. More of a halo when spun than that of the Muga silk.

@BBtoo shares: I’ve already spun Tussah silk. Advices from Rachel were very helpful – to use a bowl and split the fiber lengthwise. But then I pre-drafted it a little bit. Maybe I shouldn’t have done this, because the fiber became very fluffy. I hardly could tame them and the singles turned out pretty inconsistent. I spun short backward. The unwashed skeins turned several times, but after I had washed the skeins two times alternating in hot and cold water, they hung flat down. Two swatches are 2-ply vs. chain-ply.

Natural Shades ALONG& Zero to Hero

Debbie (@debbilou) shares via Slack: Finished, Blocked and I love it!, to be honest I was a bit worried how it would turn out as I had not actually planned for this wool to be a Jacket,  but the construction of the Marajacke made me try it out (it just needed to get on my needles!)  It’s my own Coburgerfox wool, washed, carded, naturally dyed and spun by myself, yay!

51 Yarns SAL – Group B – Coils, Corespun & Supercoils | Cables

Nicole (@nicolevarrette) shares: I’m finally able to get some spinning done, it feels like it’s been forever, here is my cable yarn. I wanted to try a cable yarn for socks so I spun the singles to about 30 wpi. Giving me between 17 and 19 wpi after playing and washing. The yarn is very high twist which makes the cabling very hard to see in the finished yarn but it definitely feels different then a traditional plied yarn. The fiber is SW merino and nylon that I dyed and I’m excited to see how it works up in socks.

Nicole (@nicolevarrette) shares: This is my coil yarn, I spun this over the holidays and totally forgot to take pics before I used it in a project for a gift, I wove a couple scarfs and used this yarn as texture at either ends of the scarf. This yarn was spun from a batt that had so many different fibers and some silk. This was a super fun yarn to make and I will definitely be doing more.

Maria (@palmikkopuu) shares: I started to experiment with cable yarns. I carded some dyed blue Texel locks, Finn, Mohair and Åland sheep fibers together mostly with my drum carder and some with hand cards. . I tried dizzing the fiber off the carder. I tried to read The Intentional spinner book, but I did not find how she recommends to spin the singles. I decided to spin long draw. My first sample ( more brown) from hand carded rolags I spun first right, plyed to 2-ply s left and then cabled right. It was quite un balanced after I took it from niddy noddy, but balanced well with washing. The bigger skein ( more yellow) I spun to other directions. My singles where a bit more even and thin and the yarn became less fuzzy. I think they look cable yarns! I try to knit with these and see how they work… This is interesting. What kind of drafting you prefer for cable yarn?

Tin Can Knits ALONG – thread here– Dissolving into Zero to Hero at the end of January 2021

Thank you so much for joining me today!

Until then, Happy Spinning!