Ep. 192: Colourwork mittens, Romney & more!
Dear Spinning Circle,
Live Stream: Saturday, March 27th @ 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!
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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 Bobbins
Disdero Ranch Romney – carded; Ashford eSpinner 3; short forward realigning fibres as much as possible
Spunky Eclectic Gotland in “Thread Box” – Turkish spindle; 35gm; short forward with smoothing; low twist
On & Off the Needles
In Progress – Knitting
Shifty by Andrea Mowry
- slightly larger gauge on 3.5mm // US 4 needles; Westcoast Colour Falkland & Polwarth + Silk spins here, here & here
Hive Mind by Adrian Bilizia
- West Coast Colour BFL & Qiviut colourwork; 3.25mm // US 3 needles
Community Participation
For March, tell us about Spring or Fall in your area of the world — share in the episode thread here or comment below here on YouTube!
Breed & Colour Studies – Shetland
Cheryl (@ckao1011) shares via Ravelry: Sample colourwork swatch, 1 mini skein of bracelet plied Black, 1 skein of 2-ply gradient in Always Believe CC, 1 skein of 2-ply Natural Grey MC. I will use these yarns for Ysolda’s Colourwork Club 2021 series for a stranded colourwork cowl Mulben. I wanted this yarn to match the pattern yarn, Rauma Finull, a traditional 2-ply, somewhere between heavy fingering and light sport weight at 175 meters per 50g. I think I managed to get close to the target. I spun 2 bobbins of singles from the White and Moorit half-braids of the Always Believe colourway for the CC skein. I had arranged the colours from darkest to lightest/natural, hand-carded them into rolags, and spun long draw. What have I learned? As Katrina of CraftyJaK’s says, to “Always Believe”! Just like her hike, I didn’t think I would make it. This spin was a lot of new challenges all at once: new breed, new long draw, new colour management, new yarn weight. But I learned sooooooo much from just doing it!
51 Yarns – Group B
Alison (@abigbee) shares via Ravelry: Clun Forest for True Woollen – created some bracelet plies after spinning supported long draw. Leicester Longwool for True Worsted. Handcombed, spun short forward and slightly biased swatch. Also spun Southdown True Worsted with short backwards. Semi woollen sample spun from Southdown; chain-plied. Sem-worsted from Dorset Horn, spun short backwards with smoothing.
Noemi (@manuzona) on Ravelry & Slack shares: True Woollen from Ouessant fibre processed from raw fleece and carded into rolags. Spun longdraw. It might be the softest gradient I ever made, hopefully visible enough in photos. I think about weaving it instead of knitting, that might bring up the colour shift a bit better. In the Grease from crossed Shetland & Romneys. I wanted to compare, also: so I divided the pile into two 100g amounts, kept one raw and washed the other. After washing, the skein spun in the grease is whiter than the washed one!
Nicole (@nicolevarrette) shares via Ravelry: For this yarn I used some mini skeins of yarn and some silk ribbon and cut them up into tiny bits, then I used my blending board to blend them into some merino. This was a really fun yarn to make although a bit messy, I chain plied the singles thinking that it would trap the bits in better but I’m not sure if maybe I should have done a traditional 3 ply? Or if it’s just the nature of the yarn? Anyone else find bits flying off as your spinning?
Iris (@iirislotta) shares via Ravlrey: I have 450g of mc and 350g cc, grist 300-380m/100g. For her Shifty sweater!
Debbie shares via Slack: I finished my first sweater! I bought a Jacob fleece last August. processed it. Spun it. And here we are!! Can’t wait to wash it and block it.
Katie shares via Slack: Finished my weekender sweater by Andrea Mowey. I only knit for 4 inches of positive ease and not the 10” that is recommended. It is a worsted spun 2 ply from a Rambouillet fleece.I finished the yarn during tour de fleece 2020. There was a lot of VM and needed to be flicked before running through the drum carder, I also washed/rinsed the sweater 3 times! That was after washing the fleece and finished yarn multiple times as well. Lesson learned just because a fleece is cheap does not mean it is worth all of that time. I still very much enjoy the sweater though. About 1,000 yards used.
Tamar shares via Slack: So this is my finished zero to hero Nightshift shawl. For the better part of 2020 this was the background spin I worked on. For a while I have been wanting to knit this shawl to wear with a white long sleeve tee or plain solid tops. It is composed of BFL/silk which I spun fractal 2 ply. I tried to chose complimentary braid colors-some jewel tones then muted versions of those color to hopefully balance the shawl. A few things went wrong from the beginning. 1. BFL/Silk did not want to be spun into a worsted weight yarn easily so it was a struggle to keep consistent singles. The braids were better suited for a lighter weight yarn. Through perseverance this spin did end up consistent with all final skeins within less than 10 yds from each other. Listen to you fiber! 2. I couldn’t find some of the colors I wanted so I settled for other similar selections which ended up muddying parts of this shawl in the end. 3. This yarn should have been a three ply for less severe color transitions throughout the shawl and for spinning ease. Iwas so concerned with drape (which it certainly is light and drapey) that I didn’t consider how this would affect the final spin. Do I hate it? No, I don’t. I will wear the hell out this thing. It still is beautiful to me. It is unique and a reminder of my best work at the moment. I have learned a lot about color and color management. I have been contemplating spinning for this again taking all I’ve learned and following up. Maybe someday.
Thank you so much for joining me today!
Until then, Happy Spinning!
