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

Enjoy the show!

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)

Spinning On The Wheel || Charollais

We will be spinning at the wheel! Looking at samples from the Spinning Sheep Breeds Kit from the School of SweetGeorgia, which is the kit from my new workshop – link here (affiliate link). This week, we will start off with the first couple of breeds in the kit and work our way through the entire set over the coming months – which will take us into the summer! Exciting!

Previous Charollais content:

• October 2020: Exploring Charollais (Charollais, Pt III BONUS, public)
• How I Spin Patrons: October 2020: Exploring Charollais (Charollais, Pt II)
• How I Spin Patrons: September 2020: Exploring Charollais (Charollais, Pt I)
• The Wool Circle Patrons: October 2020 (transcript): Charollais (Pt II)
• The Wool Circle Patrons: September 2020 (transcript): Charollais (Pt I)

On & Off the Needles

In Progress – Knitting

Enchantee by Emilie Luis – Bowmont/Alpaca blend 2-ply, held double with Mohair-Silk lace; 4.5mm & 4.00mm // US 6 & 7

Larch Cardigan by Amy Christophers – deep stash, 100% BFL dyed years ago by Lynne of West Coast Colour; sport weight, ~1# of yarn or 1200 yards

Community Inspiration // Participation

I can’t believe it’s August already! We are more than halfway through this year! How are you doing with your yearly plans? Do you have any? Do you make plans for the year? How are you feeling about your making this year, so far? Tell us in the Ravelry group thread here or in the comments section on YouTube. 

Breed & Colour Studies – Shetland

Megan shares via Slack her finished shawl!

Breed & Colour Studies – Jacob

Alicia shares via Slack: I’ve completed my breed and color study yarn and I’m so happy with it. I ended up with ~124 yards of a worsted to aran weight traditional 3-ply gradient yarn. I spun it using a short backwards draft which worked perfectly with this fiber. I’ve already got a project picked out for it and will get it on the needles soon. 

51 Yarns – Group B

Spindle Spun Summer (SSS)

Spindle Spun Summer – Starting on the Summer Solstice! Co-hosted by Marce of Hey Brown Berry Podcast

Megan shares via Slack: Got up to the mountains for a little family bike ride today.  Kids play at the lake, I spin.

Diana shares via Slack: It’s a wrap. Finished spinning all the red/magenta/orange/silk blend and assessed nine spindles in the process. Now to wind all the yarn off into plying balls. Winding a two-strand plying ball from the singles yarn which were separated into blending board singles and drum carded singles. Hopefully this will make a more consistent yarn – in terms of colour. I have suspended spindle and supported spindle singles all mixed up. Let’s see what that looks like. Stay tuned.

Sarah shares via Slack: I finally have four turtles ready for plying. There’s a bit left to spin, but I think I’m going to ply a bit first to give myself momentum to finish!

Mary Jo shares via Slack: Very excited to learn that spindle summer is going to continue into the fall with sweater knitting. I had already been looking at my small pile of spindle spun down imagining it knit into a colorwork sweater with a ball of 3ply borrowed from my daughter’s stash!

Josee shares via Slack: I got my Silly Salmon spindle today. Isn’t it just  gorgeous? It is my first supported spindle and there is a learning curve to surmount park and draft. One obstacle is I cannot tip the spindle sideways in the bowls I have found because the sides of the whorl rub on the surface. I have a wooden spinning bowl ordered but this little beauty has a metal tip. Any advise on where I could order a good bowl for metal tipped supported spindles?

Josee also finished some more of her singles: And then they were two! (half my singles are done)

Luxury Fibres ALONG 

Megan shares via Slack: I finally did it! I have spun cashmere cloud into enough yarn for a sweater! This is 1380 yds of 3 ply fingering weight yarn. I have been spinning this since January! There is soooooo much twist involved in this project. I spun it semi short backwards. I did let some twist in the yarn supply, but i also smoothed the yarn down for a more worsted look. I tried some long draw, and without smoothing and it gave quite a halo. I wanted a more worsted look for this yarn, so i liked the smoothing better. I experimented with spinning from the cloud vs making rolags, vs making punis. I really liked from the cloud the best. I felt the rolags and punis again gave more of a fuzzy haloed look.There is 1380 yards, 3 ply fingering weight. I spun 405g total or 14.25oz giving me 1550ypp. This is by far the lightest, finest, highest twist yarn I have spun to date. It was spun on my 24 in schacht reeves at 31.5:1 in double drive. I basically drew back and drafted around 24 inches while treadling as fast as i could, and then held the yarn for 14 more treadles before winding on. I plied on the 31.5:1 ratio as well but in irish tension instead of double drive. I am sure the number of treadles for the project is in the 100,000s range! This was my first time spinning a large quantity of cashmere. While I wouldn’t call it a beginner fiber, I think an adventerous intermediate could give it a try. Now to swatching!

Natural Shades ALONG 

Eveline shares via Slack: I plied and washed my Polwarth. It’s almost 400 meters of 2-ply, super squishy!  The thickness is all over the place, between 8 and 20, but most of it is around 10 WPI. I’m just practicing and I think I reached my goal of getting more comfortable with long draw. Now I can start working on consistency. Anyway, it’s so soft that I want to cast on immediately but I’m not sure what to knit from it. Maybe some kind of cowl?

Zero to Hero // #sweaterspin #useyourhandspun #spinallthethings #weavewithhandspun

Amanda shares via Slack: Some firsts in this sweater spin!  So, this sweater for my husband is part of my make 9 for this year.  My first fully drafted-from-scratch sweater.  It has saddle shoulders and a broken rib hem/collar.  It is also the first big spin of mine where I used my drum carder to create the blend and it turned out so consistent in it’s colour that I didn’t even bother alternating skeins when I knit.  It is a blend of 4 different colours of merino top and was spun longdraw from the stripped down batts and plied as a standard 3-ply.  Oh, and it actually fits him.  SUCCESS!!!!

Helene shares via Slack: Gauge question! I want to knit the Albini Sweater. The gauge for it is 20x27rows and my yarn came in at 22 by 35. With the recommended needles. I love the way the swatch knitted up and the feel of the fabric. Shetland 2ply. If I still use this yarn with these needles how will it effect the garment? Or can some one point me in the right direction to look this up? I think if I go up a needle size it’ll be too airy.

Sue shares via Slack: My first zero to hero all the way from fleece to vest is well underway. Romney fleece. Body blocking before picking up for the bands. Hard to believe this start out as a bag of dirty fleece and no idea how to proceed.

Sample Spinning // PLAY

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct. – Carl Jung

Kelli shares via Slack: I’ve been spindle and e spinning a bit but mostly knitting.  For the last couple of weeks I’ve been working on these socks.  Fiber is MCN from Wound Up Fiber Arts.  I spun the singles on drop spindles and plied on my Nano e- spinner. The finished pair are also WUFA fiber in organic polwarth.  The polwarth ones are my 1st socks ever and I’ve had fun knitting them.

Helene shares via Slack: Started spinning for my first pair of hand spun socks! My son, Mason, helped me weigh and divide the braid. It’s a Polworth and silk blend from Three Waters Farm and I’ve started spinning the first single for a 3 ply fractal. I watched Rachel’s spinning for socks class on School of Sweet Georgia and had to do it myself! I’ve looked up how to knit two socks at once so I don’t get stuck with one sock (I have quite a collection of one sock wonders).

Greta Lyn shares via Slack: Just playing with samples today for a Queen Mab Shawl for a friend. Top is from a short staple shetland roving, then the dark is from a Romney montadale lamb fleece, silver is from a Finn fleece and bottom is carded short staples from cross fleece. Still deciding.

Heidi shares via Slack: Here’s what I was spinning during the zoom.  I finally got to the braid I posted about awhile ago.  I thought seriously about trying a gradient with it by breaking it into pieces, but then changes my mind when I realized there were a lot of little bits of color here and there too.  I pulled it into 9 strips and I am going to chain ply it to keep some of the colors together, well mostly together.  Some color patches are long and others are very short.  So, we shall see. It’s a 21 micron Merino.  I’ve been going through my stash and spinning anything that isn’t ‘for’ something specific. Just doing pleasurable de-stressing spins with no purpose in mind.  Sort of going with the flow of what looks and feels best at the time with minimal sampling and rarely keeping any record other than how it was spun.  Not even a sample card. LOL. 

Sue shares via Slack: This is Hilltop Cloud fibre. I decided to try spinning from the fold for the second singles. I started on my spindle, but changed to the Matchless in DD. And I’ve got it worked out!  The striping is very subtle, but you can see each colour drafting out from the chunk in my hand. Very cool. I hope this will give a bit more colour variation in the final yarn. I’m smoothing the singles to more closely match the spindle spun one.

Weaving

Sarah shares via Slack: I finished the little bag I made out of some handspun BFL. I made 8 squares on my zoom loom and sewed them together. This is only my second completed project on my zoom loom. I am very happy with how it turned out.

Dorothy shares via Slack: My first band weaving project.

Barb shares via Slack: Leftover busting towels are done. Used a different weft leftover cones for each one. Interesting how the warp-faced structure heavily muted the differences. That makes 11 colors in the warp. Weft was cream, lime green, rust, light blue-gray, and medium gray.

Greta Lyn shares via Slack: I never remembered to post this, but we finally got one of my woven pieces from last semester hung. I’m hoping to get back into weaving in January. Black weft is handspun Navajo churro singles. Warp is handspun white Cotswold 2ply.

Lauren shares via Slack: My happy place!

Thank you so much for joining me today! 

Until then, Happy Spinning!