Fiber Musings

I won a 6 oz. package of Border Leceister/Mohair blend roving from Toots Le Blanc a couple of years ago at Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat. First thing Kathleen asked me was, “What the heck are you going to do with that?”

You see, Kathleen knows that I’m a wimp when it comes to wool. It’s next-to-skin softness or nothing at all. And my standard for next-to-skin softness is pretty high. In fact, Kathleen thinks that I’m a wuss. So, when she saw me with a package of long wool, she snickered.

But what she doesn’t know is that I’ve been mentally planning a punch rug, made with handspun wool. I have some Lincoln X Corriedale rovings in a variety of natural colors all ready to go. The Border Leceister will be a nice addition to the mix.

I have the basic shape and dimensions — an irregular pentagon (2 sets of 2 equal sides and angles, with one set of right angles) to fit in front of the double french doors up at the cottage, but I don’t have a design as of yet. I want it to be of some sort of Native American/Puget Sound theme. There will be some subtle marking to note the 4 compass points. But that’s as far as I’ve got in terms of design.

Today marks the half way point for le Tour, and I finished plying the Targhee/Clun Forest today.

Yardage: 1,342, before wet finishing
Weight: 15 oz.
Plies: 3
WPI: 16-20, before wet finishing; about 12-14 wpi after wet finishing

The yarn poofed up nicely after a nice soak. It’s about a DK weight yarn. I’m waiting for it to dry before re-skeining to find out exactly how much yarn I have. I think there is enough yardage for  a nice lofty sweater, although a side trip to a dye bath might be in order.

Today is the first day of the high mountain rides, and I feel like I’ve achieved that 14.3 km climb up the 6.8% grade.

I finally finished spinning the Targhee/Clun Forest singles. It took 6 days to spin a pound, but it’s finally done. I spun a bit on the Rest Day as well. I can now finally move on to the plying.

I started with the Judith Kate by Will Taylor, but the weight of the bobbins (these jumbo tigerwood bobbins are heavy!) and the angle, it was just too much grab for my softly spun singles. I kept breaking one of the singles. (Okay, it actually was drifting apart.) So I moved them off onto the kate that came with the Schacht. All 3 large bobbins will only fit if they are offset in the kate. It wouldn’t work well if these bobbins were completely full though, because there’s a bit of an overlap.

Hopefully, a couple of days of plying and I can move on to the next fiber!