Spinning Experiment

So with my Valentine yarn I am plying-on-the-fly, which utilizes chain plying to create a 3-ply yarn. I like to spin thin and was a little disappointed with how thin my 3-ply was, a heavy lace/light fingering. I was given the idea that when plying on the fly I could do it twice and create a 9-ply by chain plying the yarn I had just chain plied.

Here are the two skeins next to each other. I did a smallish sample of the 9-ply, but large enough I could get a good feeling of how it would turn out.


I decided not to do it all 9-ply as that is just a little too thick for me. It's a bit thicker than worsted, by eyeballing it, which will probably grow after it's been washed.


Here is a better comparison.  The 9-ply is wonderfully squishy though!


Started spinning the rest of it, going to stick with the 3-ply to finish it up.



When I start my next fiber I want to experiment with plying-on-the-fly to see what I can get. I think it might be possible to get a 5-ply by double looping, but I'll need to experiment. If I can get a 5-ply/6-ply that would be ideal.

Valentines Spinning

I realized today that I haven't posted any of my Valentine's spinning yet. I have been working on it through January.

Here it was at the start, I am doing plying on the fly, so I spin up a certain amount of singles, wind them on the shaft, ply them, and then wind them on the arms.


Here you can see the ball of yarn wrapped around the arms is the plied yarn and the singles wrapped around the shaft.


I am usually not a pink person, but I have been quite addicted to this colorway.



Here is where I am so far. I'm trying to spin the whole 4oz on my Turkish spindle. It is the Large in the sleeker design from Threadsthrutime.


The fiber is Victoria from Greenwood Fiberworks in Polwarth, which is lovely to spin. I absolutely love their fibers.

TDF Fall Fiber

Spinning up the 75% BFL/25% Tussah Silk that I got from the Tour De Fleece winnings.

Here are some progress pics. I am loving doing the Plying-on-the-Fly method.










The fiber spins just lovely and I am enjoying the Fall colors. I'm trying to spin it all up before the end of August.

New Turkish Spindle

So in my Tour De Fleece, I won a gift certificate to the Threads Thru Time Etsy store. So of course, what did I have to do . . . buy another spindle, of course and in their new size Small. This spindle is the one I got.  Now that I finally go to try this size, it is by far my favorite size!


Here is the spindle in the middle of it all. The fiber on the little legs is the already plied yarn and the yarn wrapped around the shaft is the singles waiting to be plied.



I spun up the little bit of fiber that was sent as a sample with the spindle of Ashland Bay Colonial top in the Raspberry colorway. I got 30 yards of a chain-ply. I love spinning little samples, as I don't grow board and I love their fiber.



I am thinking I may spin the Tour De Fleece fiber I won on it next . . . we shall see! :)

Post Tour De Fleece

I most definitely did not get as much done during the Tour De Fleece as I wanted to, but I did better than years prior and am happy with what I did finish.

I finished somewhere around a bit less than half (I am bad with estimations) of the Greenwood Fiberworks in the colorway Arcade, 85% BFL and 15% Tussah Silk. I got 165 yards of a chain ply/3-ply. I love the way the colors turned out in the end and would definitely recommend this fiber! It's around a fingering weight or maybe a light fingering weight.





I am still slowly spinning the rest of it and I am more successfully trying Plying-on-the-fly chain playing. Thanks to Revelations of a Delusional Knitter's YouTube video.




Here is my little bit of progress so far on the rest of the fiber.

Tour de Fleece Progress

Well, well, getting back to this is taking a bit of practice in remember to actually post! :) Sorry, having some health issues this week and this wasn't first and foremost on my mind, but back to the crafting! I've been doing my Tour De Fleece project in the Threads Thru Time group on Ravelry and using one of my medium spindles I bought through them last year.  This is only about the first 6 days.

















Even though I have a wheel, there is something very gratifying about spindle spinning. At first I didn't care for the orange/yellow color because it was so short it blended too much with the green, making it more muddled, but it is growing on me.

The fiber is with 85% BFL and 15% Tussah Silk in the Arcade colorway from Greenwood Fiberworks.  It is lovely to spin, but I love their fiber in general.

I'm usually a matte type of girl and at first wasn't caring so much for the shininess that the silk added to the fiber, but it is also growing on me. I am hoping to finish it, making a chain-ply/3-ply yarn and then pair it with a black fingering weight  to create another Spiral Shawl (Ravelry Link and Blog Link). The stripes would be different, but the shape the same.

Polwarth Handspun

Remember this yarn that I had started a while ago?

Yes, I did the same thing, once I had a full spindle, I couldn't wait to ply it! I did the same, two plies held together and Navajo-plied to result in a 6-ply yarn. It is also fingering weight.


Here it is all plied up on the spindle.


Skein.


Ah, love this color, reminds me of the Pacific Northwest, where I am from.  Everything is green and blue, water and trees.

Camel/Merino/Silk Handspun

Remember this itty bitty bit that I had spun?

I finally got the spindle as full as I could and still maintain consistency. In the beginning I though I would wait until I had spun the whole bag before plying. . . but I couldn't wait so here is the first cop all plied!


Here it is plied on the spindle.


All skeined up!  Doesn't it look soft and shiny?


I beyond love this yarn.



I used my fail safe plying method, which is a two plies held together and Navajo-plied, so it is a 6-ply yarn. It's fingering weight and lovely! If you ever have a chance to work with some luxury fibers, take it! It's so worth it.

Spinning Craze - Part 4

I promise this is the last part of the Spinning Craze! Lastly, Malia from Yarn Raising Podcast has a New to You spin-a-long going on in the months of September and October. You can spin a new to you fiber, do a new to you technique, or use a new to you tool. I am using the 40% Camel/40% Merino/20% Silk that I got through the Highland Handmade Luxury Fiber Club. Also where I got the Yak/Merino.

If you could spin clouds in heaven, this is what it would feel like! It's so soft and just drifts apart.








It catches on everything though! Everything! It takes a bit more patience than the other fibers shown earlier through the week, but I know it's so going to be worth it. I know it is frivolous and probably really stupid, but something about this fiber screams to me that is should be a baby garment. . . I know, not wise, but it does. So we shall see.

Spinning Craze - Part 3

I know you are starting to think I've gone off the deep end and I definitely have. I have enjoyed the Turkish Spindles so much that it has refueled my love for spinning. I love the pre-made ball/cop so that I don't have to wind off, because that is just so very time consuming. Plus, they are also small enough that I can stick them in a small Tupperware container and shove it in my purse and go. I have been spinning on my breaks and lunches at my temp job.

I don't beleive I ever told you about the Alpaca pencil roving I purchase the Winter of 2011 . . . Wookie fell in love with it, found it while I was at work, shortly after it came to live with me and ripped it apart and spread it over the apartment. It is no longer pencil roving. Most of the pieces aren't more than 4-6 inches long and not all of it was salvageable. I have started spinning it again. It's been a while since it's been spun. I forgot to take of the top-whirl I have with some of it on there. It takes a lot of spin and it wants to spin so thin, that the other spindle was just too heavy. I purchased a Tiny Turkish Spindle and have started spinning it again:









The whole tiny spindle fits in the palm of my hand.

I also have no idea what I am going to do with these singles when I am done, most likely will be at least a 6-ply because anything else will just be too thin.

Spinning Craze - Part 2

Ah, the Yak is 50% Yak/50% Merino. It is a wonderful gray-brown color that shifts slightly. It is very soft to spin.









As you can see this cop/ball is already off the spindle. I will save them up until I am all done spinning the singles and then decide how I want to ply them. I'm not sure at all where I want to go with this. Two-ply is going to be too thin, it'll maybe be a lace-weight, which is just to thin for my preference. I am considering a 4-ply cabled yarn (2-ply and then ply them together) as I really did like the look and feel of the Navajo Cable Plied yarn I did.  That should turn out to be a fingering weight.

Spinning Craze - Part 1

I have picked up the fiber from DesigKnit that I got a while ago. In the Sea Anemone color-way, 100% Polwarth.






Isn't it beautiful? I love watching the colors change, which is the allure to this kind of dyed fiber. The trance of watching them spin and blend and shift and change.

I am using this spindle to bounce between projects, so once I finish this cop I will go back to the yak, spin a cop of that and then come back to this again.  Tomorrow I will show you the yak!

So far I think I will be Navajo plying this is two singles held together, mostly because I want the colors to blend together more, I just love how that ends up looking.  But I might to some test plies when I finish spinning all the singles.

Post Tour De Fleece

I did successfully spin most of the Tour De Fleece and I am still massively in love with my Turkish Spindle, to the point that I am looking into potentially purchasing a couple more as I prefer them.

Any who, when I purchased the spindle I also purchased some maroon, orange, and yellow fiber. I chose to take chunks of each color and make a striping yarn. I spun thin singles, as normal, and Navajo Plied it and then Navajo Plied it again, so the resulting yarn is a 9ply sport/dk weight.

















It's a small skein and I am almost done with a second one.  I really love how it turned out!  I'll show the second skein when I am done, then who knows what I'll do with the rest of it!