Am I getting enough fiber?

You tell me.



This is the last of the Romney fleece spread out on my office floor for skirting. All of the bags contain four different alpaca fleeces. Each fleece came sorted into either two or three bags depending on the farm they came from. Since I took that photo, the Romney is totally scoured and I've finished washing the seconds from two of the alpacas. With the alpaca, I'm starting with the "worst" fiber first so I can fine tune my washing regime. All four fleeces are cria fleeces, so even the neck fiber is baby soft in many places. I'm discarding more for short staple length than because of coarseness. There are two schools of thought regarding washing alpaca, but all I know is I hate getting dirty black fingertips when I spin it raw. That dusty feeling gives me goosebumps and takes away from the sheer bliss that is spinning alpaca. Thus, I wash.

My June samples for Phat Fiber were sent out yesterday. The theme is "Oceanic". I spun up a merino/tencel roving from Frabjous Fibers into a yarn I called "Clearwater" after the beach in Florida. Then I spun a 4oz wool/mohair roving and plied it with a 4oz hand-dyed Finn roving, both from the Door County Shepherd's Market (see bottom of the previous post for a photo). I ended up with a huge skein I named "Mavericks" after a really wild surfing spot off the California coast. It's surrounded by cliffs and an underwater shelf creates huge waves. It's rocky and dangerous and somehow the dark ripples in that yarn made me think of it. (Click any of the pictures to see them larger)



Unfortunately, I had to cut them up into mini-skeins so they could go into the box. I love getting samples of my work out into the world, but it's always a little wrenching to cut up something I worked so hard on. That Mavericks skein was almost eight ounces of bliss and the Clearwater singles were so silky soft, I wanted to knit something with them right away. I plan to track down some more of that fiber since it was so wonderful to spin.



I did also manage to spin a couple things for the shop. It keeps getting harder to let these go, since I am learning to spin what I love. This is "Mango Pomegranate Smoothie" - merino 2-ply with long color runs. The colors are shockingly bright in person, but somehow, it's wonderful. If it doesn't sell, I'm going to knit a lace scarf with it.

Spinning Before and After - "Hellebore"

I think I've really reached a turning point with my spinning. I am much more comfortable with raw fibers, locks, fiber prep and color blending after this latest project. I went into this with a clear idea of what I wanted, and I was able to spin to get that result.

I started with two colors of plant-dyed Shetland locks from Natchwoolie. I had about twice as much of the darker cranberry purple "Lambrusco" than the lighter pinkish "mauve". I recently bought a scale and I don't know how I lived without it before this. I split the two colors into two equal piles each. Each one was destined to become a skein.

Next, I started on the first skein. I split the piles again into two equal halves so I could spin a two-ply yarn. I have more purple than mauve, so I wanted to be sure I was able to blend it effectively. For the first ply, I flicked open the locks with a cat brush and left the two colors in separate piles. Flicking the locks really opened them up and made them easier to draft.



When I spun the first ply, I alternated grabbing from each pile and spun from the cloud. I ended up with a rustic, textured single with occasional slubs and thick and thin spots. I didn't want to card all of the personality out of this fiber, and I like how the singles turned out.



Then I started on the second pile of fiber. I flicked the locks open again. I added an extra step and roughly carded the two colors together by grabbing random combinations of locks and flicking them together. They all went into one big pile.



I spun this pile from the cloud, pretty much as it looked there and didn't pay attention to what was happening with the colors. The singles still varied a bit, but the changes between purple and pink were much less dramatic.



The final step was plying the two back together. I ended up with 2.5 oz, 110 yards and a bit of variation between sport and worsted weight. There are sections that are all purple or all mauve, but the rest is varying blends of the two colors. It's heathered with a bit of added excitement and I love it.






I swatched it on US5's and I love how this fabric shows the texture and variation in color. It's not stark stripes, but it's more interesting than a well-blended heather.

Spinning before and after - "Sprinkles"

Back in January, I got a sample of rainbow dyed wool top from the Painted Tiger. Not long ago, was reading through "Intertwined" by Lexi Boeger. I had a brainstorm and decided to try nubs with the top. I pulled some white corriedale roving out of my fiber stash and got down to it.



This was really time consuming and messy while it was in progress. I ripped the top into tiny little shreds based on color and lined them up next to me. Then I had to spin, stopping every so often to wind another nub into the single. I kept going until I ran out of rainbow top. The singles were thick and thin and really fun. If I had been planning to knit this right up into something to felt, I might have spun a little thicker and kept it as singles.



Next I spun about the same amount of white corriedale, but without the nubs. The singles were a little thinner and consistent. When that was done, I plied both together on the drop spindle. Plying on the spindle worked really well since I had more control over the twist with these two dissimilar singles. Parts of it came out looking like regular two-ply fingering to sport-weight yarn. Other parts are bulky and look thread-plied because of the big difference in diameter between the two singles. It makes a sort of bubbly effect.

End result is 67 yards, 1.9oz, thick and thin, 2-ply that I've named "Sprinkles".