Fledgling Spinner

The Tour de Fleece is well underway, and I have been diligently trying to spin a little as required, despite misgivings about reaching the end of the tour. With the little man due a mere three days after the tour, it is quite possible that this is an exercise in futility. However, I am willing, at this stage, to chance it since it is fun to try something new – spinning with sparkly batts.

I have spun from batts one other time, the butterscotchy amber colored Cappuccino batts from my mom. The rest of my spinning has been mainly from rovings and my own rolags and hand carded fiber. These batts I am tackling are also from my mom, a surprise she purchased me from BohemiaFibers, and the colorway is Scottish Highlands (click on pictures to see larger size).

All at once I was overwhelmed with how many colors are in each batt. The variation and layers are what I imagine geologists and botanists would find in the highlands themselves. A gentle blend of corriedale, silk, and firestar, I wasn’t sure where to start, but settled on making a two ply, since barber poles, where two colors swirl around each other when you ply, seems unlikely to matter with so much variation.

My prep was simple:

I decided to lay out all of the batts, to get a sense of the overall colors. In this case, the variations in the wool weren’t significant, but the silks varied from batt to batt, so I tried to picture how it would be best to distribute them as singles. I decided I would just pull each batt apart, ripping them into quarters, and then drafting them and making little piles I could pick from randomly.

A far more clever planner and spinner could determine how many bobbins of singles they might spin, let’s say four, tear batts into the same number of sections, and then use one part of each batt on each bobbin in order.

I took the lazy way.

I drafted into balls of soft fiber, ready to spin up. The fibers were meticuously prepared, so there were not a lot of chunks to contend with, as I have observed in some smaller carded prep samples.  Any thick/thin issues I had were my own shortcomings while drafting the fiber between my hands.

For a great tutorial on drafting to prep to spin, check this video out or this one for drop spindle.

Into the second bobbin, the colors are just delightful shifts and highlights with sparkle throughout. Can’t wait to see how it plies up, but I need to wait because I WILL be following the rules I read somewhere that say you match your last bobbin with your first bobbin, second with the second to last, etc. Keep your fingers crossed that it works out ok!

Roving, like yarn, is never a promise of what a thing may become. How I see it, how I work it, and how it unfolds under care of my hands could be world’s apart from what someone else would do with the same medium. I like to think of it as birth because the possible combinations appear reasonably infinite.

Take this lovely roving I oggled and ordered from Knit Witch:

Commercial rovings were intimidating to me at first. I wasn’t confident my spinning techniques were “worthy” or anything other than the alpaca roving I labored over. I was wrong. The luxury (so to speak) of having things combed and ready for your artistry was almost easier than fussing from beginning to end. I digress.

First things first, take the label off the braid and unwind to get a good look at all your fleece has to offer. Note: not all ready-to-spin fibers come “braided” like this. Combed top, slivers, and batts all look different. More on that as my addiction unfolds. In principle, I would say the plan of attack should be the same.

The braid is basically one long run of prepared fibers looped up on each other in a pretty way to keep them together and neat. At least this is my interpretation. I deconstruct the pretty and look at the whole pile.

I knew I wanted to do a two ply so I imagined the best way I could divvy up the fleece over two bobbins. To this end, I laid out the sliver/top (still not sure which is which) and tried to match color repeats. It is SO long there is no way I would predraft the whole length of it so I knew I was going to be tearing it into manageable lengths. This exercise helps me decide where to make the tear.

For this fiber, I divided the whole into thirds, which gave me a blue/silver/teal repeat I could wrap my head around. Each of the three got divided into quarters and I predrafted and wound into loose clouds from the same end for each of the four. I kept the same quarters together. When I was done I had a basket that could be translated into text thusly:

Four balls of blue/silver/teal/silver/blue/silver/teal (you get my drift), four balls of the next chunks of color and four balls of the third. In this way, I could figure on nearly correct color alignment if I took one ball from pile #1, next ball from pile #2, next from pile #3, back to pile#1, #2, #3. Stop, End of bobbin. Then I had two of each left for the second bobbin.

I figured my reasoning was sound. The only complication I considered as I spun is what anyone who braids knows – sometimes the ones that have more overlap are shorter. If I pulled a little less on one of the balls and a little more on the next bobbin the whole thing could be thrown off. But it was as close as I was gonna get.

The next step is to have the Chief Inspector make sure your bobbins full of singles pass his high standards. Then ply.

Not too shabby in the match-up department…..

There it is, all 100-and-lost-count-on-the-niddy-noddy yards of squishy two ply.

Halloween knitting somehow feels more appropriate with the yarn I spun from the Knit Witch roving. I am embarking on a small lace project and loving that the colors in the yarn worked out just like my handspun sample. Here’s to hoping I can draft the next one just as well. For now, I am trying to put aside that strong desire to see what “Vatican” roving looks like spun up. I might finish one half of this project and then reward myself…..a wee treat with a spinning trick or two.

I have been “spinning” for over a year now. I cannot say that I have accomplished much. I can honestly tell you that I retain the fledgling part of my name. What I have learned is to just go with my gut…….and assume that if it was really that hard, all those people who developed it independently across the globe, well, wouldn’t have.

Basically, I press the treadle on the wheel and let the fibers go when I think they have whirled around on each other enough to not fall apart completely. I like to imagine there is instinct for this. Planning helps too. If I pull apart the fibers in a long strand (so-called pre-drafting) then it is already mostly there…..they just need the twist and a little help pulling apart along the thick bits.

The first full spindles of single ply fiber are so rewarding. It has all the potential wound up in there. There are no final ply issues or yardage concerns but the whole color palette of the fiber is laid out, plain as day. Singles are terribly romantic to look at. I think that this roving suits the color on the wheel very nicely.

I have not been spinner only – my spouse has also helped me to properly merchandise my latest etsy products. He created an amazing wee box for Caution: Live Yarns!

So I recently ordered some delightful dyed superwash and it arrived yesterday. The colors were even better in person!

KnitWitch Roving

They are the “Tuscany” and “Vatican” colors from the Knit Witch’s shop. I saw the Knit Witch at SAFF last year and loved the sock yarn I bought, so I have been coveting more of her things since then. So fate was kind enough to step in and make me the lucky winner in a random drawing for a gift certificate to her shop!

So confession time – after the alpaca I have spun (I am almost done with the third fleece – the fawn colored one),  the Louet merino silk bag I spun up (pictures coming soon), some merino/silk roving my mom gave me that started the whole “want to learn to spin” thing in the first place (yes, those pictures coming soon too!) and a couple of random samples and one BFL braid from SAFF, I have never actually knit with any of my finished yarn.

There. I said it.

I am so scared that:

- whatever I make will fall apart if my spun yarn turns out to be subpar.

-  that I will run out of wool for the project and can’t get more of it.

- that the yarn will split and be awful

I am also reluctant to part with the cuteness of the finished skeins!

Last night I changed all of that. The rovings were so yummy that I put what I have learned thus far into play.

1. Break off a manageable length of roving.

2. Split it lengthwise to a workable thickness.

3. Predraft the fibers, being careful not to pull them apart.

(that’s the spinning “predrafteddon’tmesswiththis” basket)

4. Relax and spin, being careful to test it to make sure it won’t break.

5. Stop before you get too into spinning the singles.

6. Navajo ply a sample because you remember somewhere reading that a three-ply was good for socks. Oh, and it is supposed to preserve color changes a little better?

7. Wind off the bobbin. Make a skein. Knit on needles……

I am the happiest spinner, ever.