Dear Spinning Circle,
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 Bobbins
Bowmont & Huaycana on Lendrum Saxony; long-draw
Sanjo Silk Samples
- 3-ply: 50/50 Merino/Silk; 50/50 Silk/Linen; 100% Tussah Silk; baby camel down w/recombed Tussah waste
- 2-ply: Tussah w/neps
On & Off the Needles
In Progress – Knitting
Fanel by Orlane Suuche – Disdero Ranch 100% Romney; woollen spun; Ashford eSpinner3
Florence Tank by Sari Norland – Drops Lace Unicolor (70% Alpaca/30% Mulberry Silk)
Cruiser by Kristen Finlay – Small Bird Workshop CVM/Mohair held double with Cascade 220 Fingering 100% Wool in colourway 9680
Aurealis by Jennifer Steingass – 100% spindle spun sweater in Gotland; Spunky Eclectic ‘Thread Box’ (December 2020 club colourway) with 100% undyed Gotland; Turtlemade Turkish Spindles (~35g); sample swatch finished!
Community Participation
For February, tell us about your GARMENT FITTING ISSUES — share in the episode thread here or comment below here on YouTube!
Ask Anything
Maria asks via Ravelry: I’ve just bought a flatiron wheel, (which is fabulous for longdraw) and spinning up some gorgeous Brown Romney fleece which I’ve prepped myself and carded into rolags. I’m spinning supported long draw at a ratio of 15:1. My question is…I want to keep the light and lofty characteristics of the yarn so would you ply it on a slightly larger whorl to softly ply it? Do you tend to ply on the same ratio? I’m curious to hear people’s thoughts. I’m so used to just doing what I always do…I’m sure the answer will be SAMPLE.
Maria shares via Ravelry: I got inspired to try to make sock yarn as my striped yarn for this challange. During Easter I carded a few blends with drum carder and I dizzed rovins off. There is dyed blue Texel locks or BFL top to give the MC for rovings and white Finn or Finn cross as ‘body ‘ and white, blue or red mohair locks or Gotland locks to give strenght and deepness for color. While spinning I got the idea of trying both long draw and short forward draw. It was interesting that my short forward draw gave that thinner and more even yarn. Also the the difference in lusture is obvious. My long draw is still much in the learning curve I hope. The chainplying too. The colors are a bit less bright. I lke the green grey teal skein most. Now I should decide the sock pattern.
Breed & Colour Studies – Shetland
Alex C shares via Slack: I thought I’d share my breed and colour study progress so far! I dyed the 3 100g braids of different Natural coloured Shetland – white, moorit and grey – and gave half of each braid to a friend to play with. For my spinning I spun the Moorit base as a 2ply. Split in half and then one of the halves in 3 – aiming for a 2ply fractal and used a 12:1 ratio on my lendrum dt. I really liked how it came out in the moorit because the colour shifts are so subtle. So I tried the same with the grey but was a bit disappointed by how muddy it looked. Given that, I did something different with the white base. I Split braid horizontally in the undyed sections and aimed for colours to repeat in the same order then chain plied. My theory was that it would stripe, so I immediately put it to the test and made a hat, combining it with some undyed Shetland 2ply I had spun previously in random- ish stripes. I love how gentle and blended the finished stripes look and I’m excited to try doing this with other braids in my stash. I really want to play to see if I can get longer colour repeats for a project with a bigger circumference ie a sweater!
Kathi shares via Ravelry: This was a lovely spin! From left to right they are Mulberry, Tussah, Muga, Yellow and Red Eri, and Peduncle. I tried not to spin too fine, since I don’t fancy knitting with super thin silk yarn – my plan is to knit some kind of shawl with the finished skeins, maybe incorporating the ones from the upcoming “luxurious animals” sampler as well as some undyed woolly wool. I therefore tried to spin to the same-ish wpi – only two samples refused: the mulberry wanted to be spun finer, the peduncle thicker. Who am I to argue? All spun cont. backwards straight from the top without prepping the fibre in any way. I really couldn’t tell which spin/yarn I love most. The eri and the muga have just wonderful colours, the mulberry spun like butter (it was the softest of all of them, if that’s possible), the peduncle is great because it feels more woolly but still has great shine. Perhaps the tussah was the least exciting for me (I am not a huge fan of its fuzzyness), but it’s still a lovely and luxurious yarn. I am not sure if the yarns lost some of their sheen after soaking; I suspect that the problem was that I squeezed out the water and I seem to have somehow squeezed out the sheen as well. The second half of the samples I rolled lightly in a towel, that seemed to have worked better.
Karen shares via Ravelry: I really should find a pattern for this, one fleece where I sorted the locks by color. It was the most amazing adult Gotland fleece, shiny and drapey but a bit heavy. Ok fleece was free and dirty and looked nothing special, but it really is amazing. Just not sure how to use it. Usual answer for me is sweater, but since it is kind of heavy it might not be the best Choice. Maybe a blanket, but not sure I have enough, gotta check the shrubs project, very interesting.
Zero to Hero // #sweaterspin #useyourhandspun #spinallthethings
Rebecca shares on Ravelry: My first zero-to-hero sweater for 2021 is cast on: This is a gradient spun back in January, yellow through orange and red to brown. I’ll use the colors in a way inspired by the Comfort Fade, but my gauge is totally different, so I’m using a pattern from an Interweave Knits issue I already have. So far, so good. And the second sweater quantity is finished: This is a blend of different colors of Cormo and alpaca, destined to become a Weel Riggit (by Kate Davies). After thinking about sweater spinning for years upon years, it’s finally really going somewhere. I finished my first handspun sweater just over a year ago. I now have three complete, with two more in progress and another sweater quantity in the wings. It’s really quite intoxicating when I stop to think about it. Though really, part of the trick for me is not stopping to think about it too often!
Marina shares via Ravelry: Through knitting the Plus 1 Sweater by Camille Descôteaux, I was able to reconnect with my roots and my ancestors. I was able to feel a hug from my grandma through the fibres of her handspun. My mother had walked passed this beautiful sheep in Charlevoix (most likely Down lane), and asked the farmer what was going happen to the fleece after he was all done sheering, and he replied: “Garbage”. She collected everything she could, and my grandma sorted through it all. Of course, after all that work, my mom didn’t event knit with it and it was stashed for 30 years. So I cared for it, learned to spin for it, and dreamed of the perfect pattern for it. As the yarn had sit for a long time, the twist was almost all gone. To maximise yardage, I got into a process of untwisting and separating most of the 2 ply, to be able to make a full sweater out of it, adding a contrast colour. The cc is my first braid (Organic merino) spun with my brand new Majacraft Rose. Does that count as a zero to hero when the project involved three generations? Hopefully my daughter will get to wear it one day too!
Sample Spinning // PLAY
Jennifer shares via Slack: A good amount of my wool stash goes into my art quilts. There is a symbiotic relationship between processing for spinning and what I use for felting, meaning anything I cull as I prep for spinning lands in the containers for felting. Here is one finished 3D art quilt, for a show in July. I call it Globe Trotter. It is a cover of felted and quilted fleece on a folding umbrella ( held by tension with little triangle holders that the umbrella arms fit into). The umbrella was our son’s when he was a little boy, so that has meaning for me.
Thank you so much for joining me today!
Until then, Happy Spinning!
