Category: Spin Page 17 of 69

Washing Fleece

By Ann

On 23 Aug, 2011

In Spin

Washed Cormo (Solomon) Locks

Clockwise from left:

Fermented Suint Method (FSM): grabbed a handful and left it to soak in the FSM bath for about 7 days. (More about it here,Â here, and here.)
Finger sized locks placed in a small plastic mesh bag (like garlic bag) and washed in hot soapy water (Ecover dish soap) and Â rinsed twice, a la Margaret Stove.
Finger sized locks washed one lock at a time by rubbing each end against Kiss My Face Pure Olive Oil Bar Soap, a la Margaret Stove.

I’ll give you one guess which one I like best.

I don’t know that FSM is that much easier or less water intensive. That bundle is part of a larger handful, and it received about 6-8 rinses. Â It no longer smells, but it’s not as white as the others. (I actually think it got dirtier!) It definitely still has some lanolin left in it. I will likely wash it again in a weak soap bath, but the tips are not clean. It’s a bit messy because I didn’t bother to separate it into locks before putting it in a mesh bag and into the FSM bath. I also wasn’t gentle with it while rinsing — I tried to squeeze out as much of the filthy water as possible before moving on to the next rinse bucket. The good news is that I used the rinse water to water my lawn. I’m sure I’ve confused my dog as to his favorite pee spot.

Margaret suggests that you pull locks out that are about the diameter of your finger and wash them. She teaches both methods — washing one lock at a time by rubbing each end against a bar of soap or bundling them together and putting in a mesh bag to preserve lock structure and putting the bundle into hot soapy water.

As you can see, the bundle still has dirty tips, even though I tried to rub the tip end while the mesh bag was in the hot soapy bath. I washed it twice and it still is not as clean nor as white as the locks washed singly.

But, you can still see the crimp structure in the locks washed in the bundle. And the tips will likely open up when you flick the locks before spinning. Margaret says that you can just pinch off the tip because they are likely to be brittle anyway. Others advocate just cutting them off. Based on a couple of tests with mine, these tips are just lightly matted and not brittle at all. So, check your own wool and make the call yourself.

Since I want to spin and knit Margaret’s Filmy Fern Shawl with this fleece, I will likely process it lock by lock.

I’ll leave you with this photo. It smells worse than it looks.

Suint Bath

Spinning with Intent

By Ann

On 26 Jul, 2011

In Dye, Spin

Remember my fabric samples from Sharon Alderman’s class in March? My vision was to have flashes of color running along the warp. For the sake of expediency, I samples with the colors I wanted running the full length of the warp instead of creating the yarn of my vision. The intention was to dye and spin my own yarn with just blips of color popping in and out of the length.

This past weekend, I got down to the business of dyeing the fiber. For the most part, I used Ashford Wool DyesÂ from Amazing Yarns. Andrea had just finished a dye day with the study group. I looked at some of her results and realized that they were exactly the colors, or at least in the right range, that I had selected in my samples. She sent me off with the leftover dyes and another small jar of hot pink, and off I went.

On the right shows the dyed merino/silk next to the original color cards I wrapped using Zephyr. Pretty close, wouldn’t you say? I am replacing the turquoise with the teal and the green.

For the red, I am using the red merino/silk from The Artful Ewe (far left in the picture) Â that I’ve been spinning. Good thing I haven’t finished spinning it because it’s almost an exact match.

I had settled on using the ebony warp and indigo weft. So the base of my accent yarn needs to be black. I dug in my dye stash and found my Mother MacKenzie’s Miracle Dye kit that I purchased years ago (so old that she sold them in little zip lock bags instead of the pretty tins). I used the Prime Black for the base.

I started spinning last night. (Please excuse the fuzzy bobbin. I had to pick either the color card or the bobbin for my focal point.) I’m very pleased with the results. The color stretches are a bit longer than my vision, but that’s the way it is, since the staple length is 2-4″ for the merino/silk. I can’t get it much shorter and still spin worsted.

I chose to leave the violet out of my spun yarn. The violet disappeared into my fabric sample. In fact, it’s hard to pick it out of the sample card too. I also left out the hot pink. It wasn’t necessary.

In order to not dilute the blips of color even more (from the weft), I will leave the yarn as a single. I’m making extra sure that I have good joins that will hold up to warping. Of course, this is for the full length too, since I don’t plan on finishing the yarn before putting it on the loom. I want the yarn to bloom along with the rest of the fabric.

Lark and Jay

By Ann

On 20 Jul, 2011

In Spin

It didn’t make sense to pay for postage on a replacement shaft alone, so I bought another spindle from Wanda. :)

I bought a convertible Meadowlark, aka Lark. When converted, it becomes a Jay. The photo on the left is the Jay conversion with a Bolivian Rosewood shaft. The crossbeams are made of Pistachio.

Jenkins provided a picture of the difference between a Jay and a Lark. Really, it’s a line up of all of their Turkish Spindles.

With the addition of the Lark/Jay, I now have one each of the Turkish spindles they make. Yup. I’m a sucker for these little cuties.

Photo on the right is the Lark with the Jay shaft next to it. And in case you are curious, the Lark comes in at 18g. It should spin laceweight yarn beautifully.

Hmm. I may have to take a bit of time off from knitting the shawl to playing with my new toy. I’m curious what difference the different shafts will make to the feel of the spindles.

Yeah. I’ll call it research. It’s not playing if I’m doing research, right?

In the meantime, I’m moving right along on the shawl. I’ll post a picture of the color change tomorrow.