Better Living Through Fiber Arts: Part Two

I was right -- Arlette picked up spinning pretty quickly. Like me, Arlette is one of those crafters who really needs to know how it works, so we used both the wheel and the drop spindle.

We had a good time spinning, but we also took a break and went to the LYS to knit for a little bit. We ran into Liz, knitter extraordinaire, which was great because it gave me a chance to give her a skein of sock yarn I spun (see below.) She hugged it, and petted it, which I think means she liked it. Then Arlette and I went back to my house and ate potato cheddar soup, with bacon on top. Then, more spinning.

Drafting (basically, the process of drawing out the fibers to be twisted) is the hardest part. Luckily, drafting just gets easier the more you practice. Your hands seem to just "learn" all on their own how to control the thickness of the fiber. I think Arlette is hooked -- I know she's the type to practice obsessively until she gets it down, so I sent her home with my drop spindle and some fiber to play with. Here she is, practicing on my wheel with some totally luscious alpaca she got when we went to West Valley Alpacas a few weeks ago:

And speaking of spinning, I haven't forgotten my promise to show what I've been up to. That bright multicolored roving was super soft and slippery, so I spun each single with a lot of twist to give it some strength and (hopefully) prevent pilling.

Commercial yarns vary widely in how they are plied -- some, like Cascade Pastaza, or Noro Silk Garden, are just one thick single ply. Other yarns might be equally bulky (say, Lana Grossa Bingo) but are made of many very fine singles plied together. Some others, like the Louisa Harding Kashmir Aran and DK yarns, are "chained" and look a lot like a very fine i-cord. Most of the sock yarns I like -- Koigu, Cherry Tree Hill, and Claudia Handpaints -- are two-ply, so I decided to use those as my inspiration.

Here's how it looked on the bobbin, right after plying:

Not bad, huh? You can see that the colors from the two singles don't often match up, which is just what I wanted. Some bits have high contrast -- deep maroon against white, bright yellow-orange against pink -- but others have less contrast.

To finish the yarn, I wound it into a skein, washed it, and dried it on the swift -- I stretched it out tightly on the swift to get rid of any excess twist, because I want the end result to be as balanced as possible (if the plied yarn has too much twist in one direction, the energy from that twist will bias the fabric -- just as it would with a single ply). When it was dry, I twisted it up into a hank, took a picture, and gave it to a good home.

I'm sure whatever Liz does with this will be fabulous!

-- Sarah

Comments

[nona]

Sarah! Your handspun yarn is breathtaking! Please, please, please bring it the next time I see you so I can see -- and feel -- it for myself. I'm feeling a tad bit of envy and am thinking about getting my spinning wheel out again.