With all the fibre prepped, it was just a case of deciding how I wanted to spin it up and what kind of yarn I wanted to make. My default setting is spinning a somewhat thin fingering weight two-ply but I wanted to challenge myself to do something different and get the practice and control that comes with expanding your spinning repertoire. Even if it is something you only spin as a sampler.
I am very happy to announce that I have finally been reunited with my beloved Ashford Traveller. There hasn’t been much spinning news from me in a while, as I didn’t take my wheel with my on my last move and fortune saw fit to united me with a wheel of somewhat unknown make, possibly an old Ashford Traditional.
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‘The BIG Book of Fibery Rainbows: Creating and Working with Multi Colored Fibers and Palettes’ by Suzy Brown and Arlene Thayer of Fiberygooness was always going to be one of those books that someone would have to actively dissuade me from buying after reading the title. Fibre, colours and books, what was there going to be not to love?
I’ve been without a spinning wheel for quite a while now and have been missing playing with fibre so much that I’ve even tried learning to use a spindle. However, I never got along particularly well with that, until a very fantastic person gave me a 10 g spindle which revolutionised the whole process. If you’re a beginner at spindling, don’t like making aran-weight singles, and don’t enjoy putting dents in your floor, try a lighter spindle. I promise it’s good!
Cross the river from Harts Fabrics in Santa Cruz and you’ll come across a very appropriately named shop, Yarn Shop Santa Cruz. No prizes for guessing what they sell a lot of. Lots of lovely, snuggly, squishy wool.
After trying some ice dyeing and really enjoying the results, I though I’d give a try to a combination of speckle dyeing and painting. Normally I tend to dye fibre to spin but it’s a little bit hard to maintain defined spots of colour in the spinning process, plus, while handspun definitely has it charms, there’s a lot to be said for the near perfect regularity of mill-spun yarn.
Warning: Post may contain photographs of tortuously twisted singles, badly balanced yarns, sacrificial fibre piles and other scenes that may be distressing to experienced spinners.
Much to the delight of my downstairs neighbours, I have decided to have another attempt at spindle spinning. Although I love wheel spinning, the total yards of handspun yarn I have successfully created using a hand spindle has stood at 0 for a very long time.
At the beginning of Spinzilla, I was busy preparing some fibre for actually getting on with some spinning. By the end of Spinzilla, I had one finished skein to admire!
This is the 50/50 silk/merino that you can see some of the preparation for here. It’s a little uneven and bulkier than I had originally intended but I absolutely love the colour. It’s a really lofty, shiny yarn with some good snuggle factor as well.
It’s Spinzilla week! For those of you who aren’t familiar with Spinzilla, it’s a week for burnt thumbs, sore shoulders and empty-looking stashes as you spin as much fibre as you can in a week.
While spinners across the globe eagerly awaited the clock to strike midnight for spinning time to commence, with their piles of combed top and carded batts prepped for the wheel, I was struggling to sleep with what was going to turn out to be a really miserable cold. My fibre stash also better resembled an aimless fluff pile than anything with a plan in mind.
That’s why Day 1 of spinning time turned into Day 1 of fibre prep time…
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