March Crafting Goals
- Spin something (so many options!) and ply the one thing still to go, skein, wash and label all the yarns – spun three things! and skeined, washed and labeled all the yarns
- Finish tablet weaving – Done! and started another
- Process the alpaca fleece (3.3 pounds!) – worked on it!
- Crochet the mittens – worked on these a little bit
- Weave the plaid – finished! will make a separate post about it shortly
- Knit the sweater – worked on it! sleeves are going faster now
SO many things done this month! Lots of pictures
Spun this month, I started with 2.85 oz of Icelandic that I bought at Rhinebeck (NY Sheep and Wool Festival) back in idek 2018 maybe. I enjoyed the festival but there were So Many People so I haven’t been back. I started spinning it fine but it was slightly felted and difficult to spin fine so I switched it up. I spun it thick on my Eel Wheel 6 and then took the fine spun bit and plyed it with the thick stuff for a little bit of spiral ply yarn. The rest of the thick yarn I left as singles and agitated it slightly when I washed it to hopefully felt it a tiny bit. 130 yards of thick singles, 38 yards of spiral ply, somewhere between worsted and bulky weight.
The skein on the right needed to be skeined and washed from February. It is Corriedale from AngelLocks Fiberworks, it was pin drafted roving that was annoying to spin at first. I chain plyed it and it is slightly lighter than fingering weight. 4 oz and 426 yards
Singles for weaving! I spun this Romney lamb yarn up as singles to weave on the big loom. My plan is to try and do it the hard way without sizing the yarn to see if I can. If it works, then I don’t need to size it. If not, I haven’t lost much. It’s 3.5 oz and I don’t have yardage since it’s going right off the bobbin to the warping board, with about half going to be warp and half weft. It’s from a local farm here. It’s definitely in the lace weight range (which is a silly yarn weight range because it goes from 20 wpi to as fine as anyone can spin, which is a huge range of weight but whatever), 36 wraps per inch which factors into my warping considerations.
Singles finished last night, Montadale from Solitude Wool, 4 oz. It was a carded preparation and incredibly short stapled. It is very down like wool, high spiral crimp and lots of bounce. It was a wonderful long draw spin, so much so that I was able to spin unsupported for most of it (using only my right hand that drafts the fiber, left hand I used to pick vegetative matter and eat chocolate chips). I think I’m going to spin up some purple roving I have that is very similar in feel and ply them together. Very rustic but is a lovely yarn. I did play and win bobbin chicken, which was very irritating last night as I was so close to finishing it but had to wind the yarn onto the bobbin by hand.
Fluff
Staple length
The yarn!
Skeined and washed yarns. The grey is 10 oz of combing waste from my grey Romney fleece that I carded and spun. It’s a three ply and much more even now that it’s been plyed, which I did do in March. It is worsted weight, 514yards.
I think I spun this in January and February but didn’t post about it. I’m not entirely happy with the colors, I wanted them to match up but I think I spun the braids from opposite ends so the colors didn’t quite line up since they weren’t quite symmetrical. This is from Llady Llama Fiber Co and it is on a Targhee base. 8 oz of fiber, 2 ply and 1194 yards. It’s fingering weight ish. It’s actually still drying but I got it out for glamour shots. I adore the colors LLFC dyes.
Finished tablet weaving! It is from handspun Coopworth (dark brown) and Lincoln (grey) from washed fleece that I combed and spun extremely fine with a ton of twist specifically for tablet weaving. I also spent a lot of time taking the Coopworth from skein to a ball so I could actually warp from it, 2300 yards takes a while. When Dreaming Robots puts out the cone winder in December, I’m getting on immediately because the weaving yarns really should be on cones for ease of warping. This weaving is based on Snartemo II from Elewys of Finchingfield that I changed to have symmetrical border cards. The biggest issue I had with weaving was that the yarns were so high twist they wouldn’t really hold knots very well. It’s about 2.5 feet long.
Finished weaving the plaid! I’ll make a separate post about it because I want to write down all the details while I remember them and it’s a lot of stuff. It also still needs to be wet finished.
April Goals
- Spin something and ply the Montadale
- Work on tablet weaving
- Get Romney on the loom
- Knit sweater
- Process alpaca fleece (I want to try and get this done quickly to start another fleece for an event but we’ll see)
- Crochet mittens