« purple wrap cardigan | HomePage | dyeing felted tweed »

01/05/2006

first handspun project!

I've finished my first project using handspun yarn. It's extremely exciting!!

I got my spindle, and a spinning lesson, from Mind's Eye Yarns two summers ago. The spindle is a little wooden top-whorl guy ("little" because it's cute, not because it's actually small. I couldn't imagine if it's bigger or smaller than most spindles, or what it weighs.) that seems to work well enough. I also got 3 or 4 oz of undyed Corriedale roving (batting? I don't know what the difference is between the names of fibers. It was in a long snakelike piece.) to work with. I was frustrated working with it that summer, mostly because of the heat/wool combination, but also because I was so awful at it. I tried again every several months, to no avail.

Finally, a few weeks ago, I took out the spindle and went online to read more directions. There had to be something I was missing! I would spin the spindle, pull at the roving exactly as I was taught, but I just couldn't do it fast enough. I finally found the key to my newfound success - "parking" the spindle. Instead of spinning the spindle and letting it drop, while frantically trying to keep up with it as I pulled the roving, I would pull the spindle, hold it between my knees, and take my leisurely time pulling the roving and letting the spin enter the triangle-thing. Drafting triangle? I don't know about these spinning vocabulary words. Anyway! This process made spinning Way easier, and now I was able to spin the rest of the roving in the next day or two.

By the end I was making reasonably not awful singles, maybe DK or worsted weight. I soaked them to set the spin, and then plyed them - which may or may not be a major spinning faux pas. The plying was miserable. I couldn't imagine plying white on white, so I found some thin orange mohair yarn in my stash to ply with. It showed up well but...I still sucked. I was getting better by the end - my biggest issue was that the white was wrapping around the orange, and I really wanted the orange to wrap around the white. Big chunky white handspun yarn looks a bit silly wrapped around lacey orange mohair. Eventually I got better at letting more orange than white spin into the yarn, and it all turned out ok.

I soaked my yarn to set the spin, which is a silly thing to say because I think I mostly failed at setting anything, and my yarn looked so sad in hanks so I knit it up right away. 8 stitches of garter stitch across, size 15 needles. The scarf is about 5 feet long when I hold it up, but of course it's garter stitch so when I wear it it shrinks back a lot. I haven't tucked in the ends yet because I'm not sure if the yarn will stay like this but for now, I'm very happy with the results. Very soft, very squishy. I ordered a pound of roving from Kendig Cottage - half a pound of undyed carded Corriedale, since it worked so well the first time, and half a pound of multi-colored Merino top, because I wanted to try something prettier. I can't wait for it to arrive!

10:50 Posted in finished objects, spinning | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this