Spinning yarns

Today, surprisingly, has been a little chilly, just as well, as I have been spinning yarns in preparation for making them into neckwarmers for the coming Winter (or current Winter, if you're in the middle of it!).



There are blacks and greys, both in thick singles and slubby yarns.

They're destined to be shocked. Not a big shock, they'll be plunged into hot water, just to encourage the fibres to stay together and not stray onto a coat when they're later worn.

Then there are the creams, again, thick and slubby yarns. They'll be dyed, not sure what colours yet, but that will achieve the small shock needed to keep them together, but because of the dye time required, I will be a bit careful. I just want to shock them a little, not felt them!

When that's done, hopefully they'll turn into something like this:

I only have a few left, and they're now all in my Etsy shop!

Craft Hatch here I come!

I've figured out what time I have to be at Craft Hatch and will catch the 9.29am train to the city. I'm excited and apprehensive. I love this tiny market and hope that, despite tomorrow being cold and wintry, that people will come to the City Library and have a look and maybe even buy!

I took a quick picture of the new things that I take to the market. It's a good reference for me and reminds me that I have worked over the last two weeks. The first week was spent spinning and dyeing with a bit of basic knitting. This week has been more knitting, and finishing off each item and then pricing and putting on their tags. (Sigh!)

I'm happy with the new neckwarmers in single colours, the new lace-up fingerless mittens, dyed after they were knit. Just one more scarf sneaked in and I would have liked to make more button up mittens, but I managed one.

Sort of feel satisfied after spelling it out. Off to move the car as the builder finishes up his work tomorrow. Pictures to follow!

Experiments with singles and colour

Experimental Spinning, last Saturday, was alot of fun. We managed to sit in the middle of the room surrounded by weavers. It was lovely to have both spinners and weavers together at the Handweavers and Spinners guild!

(I do think we were a bit noisy, so I hope the weavers didn't mind too much?)

As usual, the experiments had to continue at home, so, here are three different skeins before dyeing.














Then, I followed the same procedure, as before, basically boiling the yarn to death!

1. (middle skein) I used the same top, as before, and selected a different colour. Beautiful blue.























2.This was an attempt to use fleece. I prepared it roughly on the drum carder, surprise....not good enough. I spent a little more effort and predrafted as well, still very difficult to get an even result. It just turns into a more slubby yarn.


I then tried preparing the fibre on my wool combs. This was better, but being only little ones, they didn't really help prepare the single well.

This has showed me that there is more experimenting to do: different fleece, this was a good length but a bit fine, I think; bigger wool combs.......


I still achieved a yarn I like that says to me 'hat'!

3. The last experiment was a little disappointing. I mixed the machine washable and non-treated wool top. I like the colour and how the grey affects the colour and overall effect, but while there are fluffy areas and felted areas, they don't stand out.


I think that I'll try again, adding more machine washable top and being careful about how I split the top up and how I combine them.





Finally, I decided I would knit up the first skein I did to see how far it would go. I chose 20mm needles which made quite a thick fabric, which isn't quite a scarf, more a neck warmer length. Larger needle sizes would probably yield a scarf, but I'll have to try another time.














I am very happy with the texture and feel of the knitted fabric, and I think I have a new product!

Preparing ahead!

Tomorrow is Experimental Spinning at the guild and we're looking at spinning fat singles, dyeing them and slightly felting them. There are quite a few of these yarns for sale in the gallery and they are bright and interesting, so I had been requested for a session.

Spinning the singles is pretty fast and easy spinning. Take wool top, decide how much you need to split to get the thickness you want, split it and spin it. There's no drafting and very little twist. You want them to hold together but not overtwist. Too much and the yarn will be too harsh, dyed or not.

The dyeing is a different matter. We spend our time trying not to felt our yarn, now I want to felt it a bit, just enough to have the yarn hold together and look a little felted but you definitely don't want it to felt to each other.

My usual random dyeing methods are a good start. I use very little water, so this time I brought it to the boil, before putting the yarn in, hoping that the shock would start the felting process without too much agitation at this early stage. (Note to self: next time put a bit more water in then you wouldn't have to top it up at this stage!)

I sprinkle my dye and usually leave it to very,very,very gently simmer. This time I just let it boil, played with it too much and hoped that this would be enough for the effect.

I wound some balls of wool and waited till I was happy and was going to leave it to cool down, but thought that as a last insurance policy effort I would cool it down suddenly, again shocking the yarn.

This done, I now have to wait for the final dried yarn. I am happy with the result though am not sure how felted it was. I'll post another picture when dry.

For Experimental Spinning tomorrow, I'd like to try:

1. the same process with a slubby yarn. I assume the thinner bits won't felt as quickly as the fat bits.

2. using fleece. The problem here is that tops give you a very even yarn. The solution should be in using a drum carder. The final yarn should be different?

3. using a mix of wool top and machine washable wool top. Not sure how I'm going to spin that, and my machine washable top is a mix of grey and cream.

Enough experimenting for one day!