Sunday, September 25, 2011

Castletown G and multicolor yarn and fractal spoinning - in theory

As I went to Castletown Geoghan yesterday with Rosknit to do spinning in the Eco tent at the Green Village ( http://www.greenvillage.ie/ ),  I think I'll call the resulting yarn "Castletown. Anyway, the bright multicolors of the roving I dyed remind me of little flags or bunting associated with castle fetes.
I dyed 134 grams (4.8oz) of BFL roving (Wingham Wool Works : http://www.winghamwoolwork.co.uk/ )  with KoolAid colors as folows:
The roving was soaked overnight in tepid water in the sink where the plug with its loose fit, leaked the water away slowly so the roving was just damp next morning. I divided it - unequally as it happens, 55 grams into one roasting tin and 77 grams into the other.


The top quarter or so get 2 packets of Tropical punch sprinkled, next quarter 1 1/2 packets of Orange, next quarter 2 packets of Lemonade and the last got one pack each of Lemon/Lime and Berry Blue.
I left that to soak in then pressed it with a spoon to get the dyes through to the back - but there were through anyway. I added s few drizzles of 1/4 Cider vinegar and water to leave a slight pool of water around the edges.
I placed the tins inside larger turkey roasting bags then they went into the fan over at 160 Degrees for 40 minuets. The water was clear then and I saw it boil a bit (Perhaps less heat next time?).
I let it cool in the oven, then out of the oven then took the bags off and cool to hand-hot. I poured on warm water at about the same temperature and then drained it off (still in the tins). I laid them on towels and rolled dthem up to let the liquid gently soak out of the roving.


I opened the damp roving out flat so it wouldn't dry into a semi-felt and so ti would dry more quickly, then I hung it in the hot press. Next day it was dry.


I stripped the larger part into two and spun that at 12:1 over 1/2 inch (around 24 tpi) on my Ashford Traveller , making singles of 20 wpi. BFL roving doesn't have the spring/bounce that my own sheep fleece has,  spun as locks, hand carded or combed, so I find it needs quite a lot of twist to liven it up as the fibers tend to relax to flat. Plus, it does not become too hard even when spun quite tightly.


I finished spinning the longer-color-run single single while wearing two of my knitted shawls as the wind made a B-line for us spinners inside our partial tent. I discovered that drop spindles don't perform very well in the wind (duh..) and that Reggae music suits spinning on a wheel quite well, for short worsted-style anyway.
I was not supposed to spin the second part that evening - but couldn't resist so I divided the second part in two long wise again then each of these halves into three - trying to avoid too much color pooling and to mute the loud colors. This was a sort-of fractal spinning 'though my stuff is not accurate enough to ensure any sort of dependable pattern. I am hoping for some degree of repetitions of fairly solid bits followed by marled bits.
If it were accurate, and the four colors were ABC and D, then I'd expect that each individual color of the long-color-run singles repeats ,  when plied with the short-color-run singles would have one solid color bit and three marled bits:



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Fractal spinning: second lot of fiber split in 3 or 3:1 fractal


Long color roving A B C D
Second roving split in 3 abcd, abcd, abcd abcd, abcd, abcd abcd, abcd, abcd abcd, abcd, abcd
Solid=A. Marled=m Ammm,Ammm,Ammm, mBmm,mBmm,mBmm mmCm,mmCm,mmCm mmmD,mmmD,mmmD









In my case, A=red, B=orange, C=Lemonade and D=blue-green. So in the first encounter with red on the long-color-run single, the plied short-color-run lined up with it would produce a strip with 1/4 solid red, 1/4/ red-orange, 1/4 red-yellow and 1/4 red-bluie/green.
Yeah, right! :).
Well see when the yarn is finished. I do think I'll not get too much pooling - but will get lots of marled parts.
Long-Color-Run single
Short-color-Run single




Don't treadle with a shoe that has a strap over your instep - no matter how cold it is nor how loose the strap! I did that yesterday and after my compulsion to get all the spinning done (well it was only 4.8 oz) I hobbled away from the wheel as my right ankle was bandjaked! That's an ankle with a somewhat raised instep acquired while doing ballet as a child and not usually a problem but the strap on my shoe must have been aggravating the heck out of it during treadling. While it's way better today, the finished yarn will have to wait a while to be plied:
I wondered where the "inspiration" for this color way came from then I looked out the window straight in front of me:
 Sure the yarn doesn't look quite so green in the photos (it is actually a bit more lime green in places and the blue not so obvious as those blowers, but I'd say it directed my selection all the same. Nothing to do with castles or bunting just da front garden.
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1 comment:

Lindy said...

It will be very interesting to see how it looks when knitted. Colours are very vivid - cheerful to enjoy in winter when your garden looks more dismal!