I plied the pink merino using the Ashford Traditional, with the bulky flyer/bobbin.
I also finished up 20 ounces of Merino Milk and four ounces of Wensleydale in a spin-along of Spunky Eclectic fiber. The pale blue is "Glacial" on Merino Silk, and the multi-color is "Mystic Springs" on Wensleydale, part of the April-June SAL on the "Completely Twisted and Arbitrary" group on Ravelry. Fun!
That brings me back to bare wheels (two of them, now!), and ready for the annual "Tour de Fleece," which starts this Friday!
Added June 28:
I came back to this post because I got kind of hurried when I was posting, before, and I didn't include my fiber prep...
The Wensleydale, being a longwool, such as it is, does not work well as a woolen prep (my normal prep of choice).
I pre-drafted pieces which were one sixth of the length and one quarter of the width, just simply pulling the fibers along the length until they felt loose and silky. I coiled them in little nests, and they were ready to spin. When spinning, I put a little bowl on the floor to hold the nest and let it slide or whatever it wanted to do.
And here are the two bobbins of singles, ready to ply.
The Merino Silk "Glacial" presented me with more of a quandary.
Because it was part of a spin-along, I had several pictures from other folks, and I could get a good I idea of how it was going to spin up. I decided I did not want quite as much color variation for the project I had in mind (a Cobblestone with a Wensleydale yoke, somewhat like this one). Therefore, I carded the fiber. First, I separated the colors into groups and divided them into an equal number of piles for each group (25, as it turns out). I had four groups of color that I thought of as "white, grey, blue, green." The picture below shows the color groups, where the white and green were each carded for consistency, the grey and blue are just coils of roving pieces, and there are four of the finished blends over on the right (which I'll explain in a second).
After getting my 25 x 4 mini pieces, I carded one of each into a layered batt, green, white, grey, blue.
I ended up with a batt that was green on one side and blue on the other.
Here are the finished batts, half of them coiled green-side-out and half of them blue-side-out.
And, a close-up glamour shot of one of these dudes:
Then, I unrolled each coil and made fauxlags, blue-side-out, and they were ready to spin!
Even though I normally spin a four-ounce "bump" per bobbin, I separated my fauxlags into six groups, giving me an even number of bobbins to ply. It is just as well, because the yarn spun up pretty poofy, and the bobbins were pretty full. When I plied, I couldn't quite get a two-bobbin pair onto my bulky plier bobbin, leaving me with leftovers that resulted in a final, smaller skein of plied yarn. In the yarn picture above, you can see that there is a smaller skein on the right. The skein on the left is the biggest... On the first skein, I tried the hardest to fit it all into a single bulky bobbin, but finally admitted it wasn't going to fit. On the second and third bobbin, I stopped when the plying bobbin was less packed.
Happy Knitting,
Lisa Kay
I also finished up 20 ounces of Merino Milk and four ounces of Wensleydale in a spin-along of Spunky Eclectic fiber. The pale blue is "Glacial" on Merino Silk, and the multi-color is "Mystic Springs" on Wensleydale, part of the April-June SAL on the "Completely Twisted and Arbitrary" group on Ravelry. Fun!
That brings me back to bare wheels (two of them, now!), and ready for the annual "Tour de Fleece," which starts this Friday!
Added June 28:
I came back to this post because I got kind of hurried when I was posting, before, and I didn't include my fiber prep...
The Wensleydale, being a longwool, such as it is, does not work well as a woolen prep (my normal prep of choice).
I pre-drafted pieces which were one sixth of the length and one quarter of the width, just simply pulling the fibers along the length until they felt loose and silky. I coiled them in little nests, and they were ready to spin. When spinning, I put a little bowl on the floor to hold the nest and let it slide or whatever it wanted to do.
And here are the two bobbins of singles, ready to ply.
The Merino Silk "Glacial" presented me with more of a quandary.
Because it was part of a spin-along, I had several pictures from other folks, and I could get a good I idea of how it was going to spin up. I decided I did not want quite as much color variation for the project I had in mind (a Cobblestone with a Wensleydale yoke, somewhat like this one). Therefore, I carded the fiber. First, I separated the colors into groups and divided them into an equal number of piles for each group (25, as it turns out). I had four groups of color that I thought of as "white, grey, blue, green." The picture below shows the color groups, where the white and green were each carded for consistency, the grey and blue are just coils of roving pieces, and there are four of the finished blends over on the right (which I'll explain in a second).
After getting my 25 x 4 mini pieces, I carded one of each into a layered batt, green, white, grey, blue.
I ended up with a batt that was green on one side and blue on the other.
Here are the finished batts, half of them coiled green-side-out and half of them blue-side-out.
And, a close-up glamour shot of one of these dudes:
Then, I unrolled each coil and made fauxlags, blue-side-out, and they were ready to spin!
Even though I normally spin a four-ounce "bump" per bobbin, I separated my fauxlags into six groups, giving me an even number of bobbins to ply. It is just as well, because the yarn spun up pretty poofy, and the bobbins were pretty full. When I plied, I couldn't quite get a two-bobbin pair onto my bulky plier bobbin, leaving me with leftovers that resulted in a final, smaller skein of plied yarn. In the yarn picture above, you can see that there is a smaller skein on the right. The skein on the left is the biggest... On the first skein, I tried the hardest to fit it all into a single bulky bobbin, but finally admitted it wasn't going to fit. On the second and third bobbin, I stopped when the plying bobbin was less packed.
Happy Knitting,
Lisa Kay
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