• Fiber 15.11.2014 No Comments

    I love working with raw fleece. And I love natural colored fleece. I realize that the world just sees brown or grey. I see all those variations and sometimes I just fall in love with a fleece.

    I still remember when I saw this fleece. I was at Black Sheep and didn’t have a lot of money to spend. I was over looking at the unjudged fleeces, when this one caught my eye. It’s an Icelandic fleece, moorit, with very sunburned tips.
    Icelandic fleece

    There’s just something about that contrast of the almost blond tips and the dark finer fleece of the undercoat. I bought it, washed it and played with it a bit. I think I did a beret out of a two ply I did on my high whorl. It was just a bit too coarse.

    Then I found out about how turkish spindles produce a more low twist yarn. Here’s one of my first tries.

    two ply

    Just for fun, I am going to try a little as three ply yarn. I’m spinning this on my new EA Olivewood Mindi. I am going to ply it on my no name turk. I use my Viking combs to prepare it and try to draft so that the undercoat is mixed in with the outer. (Thel is name for the undercoat, tog is the name for the long outercoat. You can separate the fibers using Viking combs.) I still wind up with mostly long fibers at the beginning and shorter ones at the end.

    three ply soon

    There is something about the feel of a fleece you prepared yourself. I do like to buy the commercial stuff, but after awhile, I get bored. I find myself spinning something brown or grey again and I marvel over those colors only I seem to see.

  • Projects 12.11.2014 No Comments

    I’d written earlier about “butterflying” the roving. I am almost done with my first braid, Emily in Border Leicester. I have another braid of it in merino. I am going to order the same colorway in Polworth and do a three ply yarn of those different breeds. The problem is that I won’t know what this looks like, until I get the next two braids spun up. Then I can ply. I’m already considering a larger project, maybe a sweater or the Easy Folded Poncho for this yarn. It was odd to go for two weeks without spinning.

  • Projects 10.11.2014 No Comments

    Spinning has been on hold a couple of weeks. I’ve done some of the Churchmouse Yarns patterns. First was the Ferryboat mitts. Then I did the Easy Folded Poncho. Now I’m working on the Go To Cardigan. I’m using commercial yarns, mostly Rowan Felted Tweed. I like the yarn and the patterns.

    It’s supposed to turn colder next week. Most of my sweaters are cold weather stuff. I’ve needed some lighter weight things. I think these will work out well.