It feels so good to finish a spinning project, and it feels especially good to finish one where I took the fiber from raw fleece to yarn (it'll feel even better when I knit it up, but that's going to have to wait until after the sock book is done).
I ended up with 8.6ozs of 2-ply yarn (from 1lb of raw fleece)- 46 yds of cream, 45 yds of oatmeal, 368 yds of med tan, and 130 yds dark tan, for a total of 589 yards of yarn (short of my 700yd estimate, back when I thought I was going to get closer to 100YPO)(silly me).
The yarn is fingering weight, and the color differences are subtle but nice. I hope to do a simple stranded pattern, or perhaps a cable with the color fading gradually from dark to light. This yarn is too soft for socks, but it would be perfect for a hat and mittens, knit on size 2 or 3 needles (3 for stranded, 2 for cables).
I learn something from every spinning project, and with this one, I learned that I am not able to properly card cormo on the drum carder. This soft wool should have had no lumps or bumps, but the yarn does. I let the fiber down by being in too much of a hurry. I should either have hand carded it (I have cotton cards, which should be fine enough for merino and cormo) or sent it out for processing. But the yarn is lovely, no matter what, and it should knit up beautifully.
Next up on the wheel- one of the Twisted Fiber Arts rovings.
6 comments:
I have always wanted to learn to spin. You do beautiful work. I can't wait to see what your new yarn becomes.
bonnie- spinning is wonderfully theraputic. You lose yourself in the rhythm of the wheel and the world melts away. And you get yarn too. A pretty cool combo- I recommend it highly.
I bought some cormo top at http://www.sedaliafiberfestival.com/ can't wait to see how smooth it spins! Yours is lovely.
thanks, carpoolknitter- I am happy with the yarn, even though it's not as even as I would have liked. It's so soft and squooshy. Your cormo top should not suffer from all the neps I got by hand-processing my wool. Have fun with it, and thanks for the link.
This is fascinating. I've just visited our local alpaca farm and come home with short fiber pieces of fleece. I've tried needle felting with both the llama and alpaca that I got - having fun with both.
Since I'm experimenting without advice or help except from the internet - and no budget at all for this - I bought some dog brushes today to try and card a bit of the fleece...and I'll be trying that in a few minutes. If it won't work, my friends have dogs who will enjoy the brushes.
Thanks for a great blog; I always enjoy when I get to visit.
sharecropper- I used dog brushes when I first started spinning (and it was with llama from a local farm). They did the trick just fine. Good luck and have fun!
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