I’ve spun 40 g of singles (52 wpi) on on my drop spindle thus far. These were spun directly from the flicked locks, using the kitten brush. I spun it all from the tip, and will ply from the butt. This also meant that, when winding the singles off of the spindle, I needed to wind off twice so that the butt end is on the outside, ready to ply.
But, last week, while I was waiting for an amazingly long download, I decided to take out my Forsyth mini combs (double row) and play with it a little bit. Just a little bit, you know, just to see how the merino would be like with combed. A few hours later…
Disclaimer: This basket was the result of 2 evenings worth of combing. I spent less than 3 hours to produce 50 g of combed top.
These were combed twice: Charged, combed off onto second comb and then transferred back to the original combs before pulling the top off. I just used hand over hand method instead of a diz. Twice also meant that the tip end is set at the correct end for spinning.
Who knew combing would be so addictive? Or that spinning from hand combed top would be so luscious? Okay, I knew the latter, but not the former. I’ve had my mini combs for over 3 years now. I’ve only played with it to comb some lincoln x corriedale that wasn’t gummy only on the warmest of all days. While it was pretty, the long locks were too much for me on the mini combs. It was also before my wool combs class with Robin Russo. (She’s teaching it again at SOAR this year. I highly recommend this class!)
So, now, I am faced with the dilemma of whether to ply up the 40 g of singles already spun and use that for my project. I think it will be enough for the scarf I designed. Or, do I spin up the 50 g of the combed top? And use the combed top in my final project instead? There is a third option, which is to ply the 2 singles together. Then I definitely will have enough yarn, and plenty leftover.
Actually, I’m going to spin the top anyway because I can’t resist them. And I need to spin them up before Ellie finds the basket and takes a nap in it and squish all the lofty goodness out of them…not to mention the nicely aligned fibers.