Friday, March 27, 2015

Merino Lilacs spun

I've spun about 145 gms of the Merino roving in lilacs and puples.
I decided to spin it in a color sequence - approximately the same amount spun of each color in sequence and then I chain-plied it to keep the sequences. There is about 313 yards wound off and now soaking in water to set the twist and remove any loose dye.
There was only a little bleeding on the first rinse and none so far in the second.
I'm hoping the sampling the hank and letting it hang-dry will even out some of the slobber parts.
Here it is on the swift before soaking:



Looking forward to test-knitting it when it is dry and wound.


Sunday, March 15, 2015

Spinning Merino Purples

After getting hold of a bag of Merino roving (from Wingham Wool Work I think) with 13 shades of purples and mauves, I decided to spin sequential colors in the singles and then ply.

The idea is to draft each color , a half inch per draft and 200 drafts in order,  filling two jumbo spools and then then ply them. Each color would be about 100 inches long but as it is not accurate, there would be a lot of overlapping (Barber pole) but with solid plied colors in between.
Somewhere I read (I think in "Spin Off" magazine) that 3 - 4 inches of yarn makes an inch of knitting whatever gauge it may be, so I'd expect 2 feet between each solid color change - well, that's the theory anyway!

I stripped the roving into smaller slivers and wound the slivers loosely into nests then placed them in order in plastic freezer bags, with 1,2,3,4, written on the labels so I'd not mix the sequence up. But, disaster threatened because the roving was too free to rome in the bags and could easily get out of order!

The solution: chain the sliver nests together in order as each one is spun so it can't get away then put the chains back in the bag.
BIG DEAL - well it's a little deal but I like it :).



Anyway, it's working so far. So I'll see, I'll see…..

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