Kiss My Knits!

Turtlegirl76 and illiane and I got together this weekend for a fun afternoon of spinning yarn while drinking coffee with Bailey’s in it. I haven’t had alcohol in years, and after the way I felt later that day, I won’t be having it again for a long while. File it under “it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Also, Turtlegirl’s single-treadle Ashford Traveller needed lots of mechanical help. I think that particular model may be made of chewing gum wrappers and twine. I think we finally got the best of it, but Turtlegirl can still safely blame all her spinning troubles on that wheel and get away with it.

This is a batt of cormo/silk blend that I got from eBay store mmfwool and started on when I finally got tired of the gray grot that came with my wheel. Even though it smells somewhat like detergent, it feels an awful lot like there’s still some lanolin in it. At least, it feels grippy and left residue on my hands after I spun some. Fortunately, I liked the way it felt.


This seemed to want to spin fine, and I’m trying to spin as fine as I can. I’m still somewhat slubby, and understand that the nature of fiber is such that the thicker areas will twist less and the thinner areas around the bumps will twist more. I tried to put more twist in this yarn than usual, as I have heard that you have to put more twist into a thinner yarn to get it to hold together. At this point, I was feeling pretty good about how this turned out. It was wound into a ball for the picture at right because I decided to ply it from each end. My Navajo plying is a little shaky and I thought I’d actually try to make this turn out pretty. (Sorry left pic is out of focus – I didn’t realize my camera was focusing on the background until it was too late to re-take it!)



At first, it was actually much more unbalanced than the picture at left. I actually had to ply it again onto a second bobbin because it was too loose. The picture at left is after giving it more twist. At right is a closeup of the strands so you can see how it’s plied. Mainly, badly. I’ve posted this in spinningfiber to get helpful suggestions.


The beauty shot! Mainly because illiane draped her yarn from our weekend spinning session over rosemary, and I had to be cute and do it too. This is to show what it was like after rinsing and drying. That cormo really lofts! This is here so you can get a closeup look at the unevenness of the fibers.

I really thought I was spinning this much denser than it turned out. All of my first skeins have turned out much more “open” than I thought they would after plying. Should I be spinning the bejeebers out of my fiber? Am I plying it too gently? I was trying to avoid the “overspinning” trap that I think a lot of beginners fall into.

I’m still investigating this. There’s a lot to learn!