Showing posts with label Suffolk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Suffolk. Show all posts

Tuesday, 7 December 2010

Getting my spin on

It has taken about five months, but I finally have some yarn made from raw sheep fleece. The processing takes longer than I could have ever imagined, but I now have enough to make a Christmas present for my Mum (they are her sheep).
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The lazy kate type arrangement on my wheel is not really any good for plying, to be honest it is really just a bobbin holder, and only takes two bobbins anyway. I converted a sturdy shoe box into a nice alternative- finally a use for those bamboo straights that have not had a look in since I learnt about circulars! It also serves nicely to store my spare bobbins now I have emptied them.
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I managed to delete the photo of the singles, and obviously can't take another one as I spent a significant chunk of yesterday plying the lot. The two spindles on the right are filled with three ply (70g and 60g), the one on the left is the tail ends of the singles Navajo plied once one of the singles ran out (9g).
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I am really quite ridiculously excited about these, they are not overtwisted or anything (this is a big achievement for me). Not quite as smooth as a commercial top/roving, but still reasonable.
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The photos were taken presoaking, it is all now sat in a big pot of water.
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The next step will be to dye it as it looks a kind of grubby grey and who wants a hat that looks dirty? I am obviously somewhat nervous about the dying step (non superwash is new territory for me), and to add to it I have a huge dilemma over what colour to go for. It needs to be a single, fairly plain colour. Currently I am toying with black or dark red, maybe with an undyed stripe. Annoyingly I have the perfect blue, but I have already used that on my brother in law's hat and I am not making them matching hats, would be odd.