unicornduke | Entries tagged with spinning

thing they all have in common: this week

Since there was rain and wind predicted all this week, including this weekend, I was out at C's two days getting things done. We put out the tarping trial (4 treatments, four replicated, with two treatments getting tarps so 8 little (12'x24') tarps went out), bed preparation for the onion bulbs for seed, which was a lot of putting perennial weeds including the tiny little shits I hate so much. I don't know their name but they produce seed and propagate by roots but their roots are tiny, so they break very easily when you try and pull them up. And they make a lot of sprouts! But they don't grow super deep so I could dig an area up and find all the roots that way. We also made sandbags for the tarps!

We got the onion bulbs in the ground outside the tunnel, which dried faster than in the tunnel, but we'll get those in the ground this coming week. We also transplanted onions for bulbs this year, which is a three person job with the water wheel transplanter. It technically isn't a work task, so I do it after we finish all the work stuff for the day, but C says it requires someone competent to do it and she has yet to find another worker who is decent at planting. It does require back muscle to get the middle row planted. I enjoy it and get a little cash.

I went home on Friday and went to family dinner and ended up being very tired. I was given an Ashford traditional spinning wheel by F's mom, which I forgot to bring home, but F and B remembered. Fiber Fourth Thursdays are a go! So me and B will be "hosting" a fiber get together every fourth Thursday from 6-8pm at her sister's farm, which I think will be fun. The ashford wheel can be a teaching wheel or if someone wants it.

Yesterday and today, I was doing spinning demonstrations at our local county fiber tour! I was planning also to do shearing demos, but yesterday didn't feel spectacular (headache and little bit of nausea that was gone this morning), so ended up handing my sheep over to J to finish while I went back to spinning. But today, I felt good and did one of the demo shears, which went very well! I really enjoyed chatting to people about spinning, lots of interesting questions and lots of knitters and people curious about fiber stopped by.

I took my CPW (Canadian Production Wheel, picture here) to spin on, since it's big and pretty and spins really fast. I also took the fleece that I got from this farm last year, a beautiful Cotswold-Dorset cross fleece, which I don't have any pictures of but will get some for the monthly goal post. I got almost a full bobbin spun between the two days from combed top, which I only worked on first thing when I got there since the combs are kind of dangerous. It was pouring rain Saturday morning when we set up, but stopped by noon. It didn't rain at all today which was great. Decent crowds!

A friend of the farm stopped by yesterday and dropped his CPW off to be sold, since he was trying to get rid of some wheels and he was keeping his family heirlooms. Given that CPWs are not beginner wheels (big drive wheel means very fast spinning and it has to be fine), there was a couple of people who thought it was neat but didn't buy it. The other spinner there said she already had five wheels and really couldn't bring another home. So I bought it. I've already posted on the CPW forums about selling it, so it should leave pretty quickly since I don't have room for two giant wheels. Someone has in fact just messaged me about the wheel while I was typing this up, 30 minutes after I made the post. So it should head out again very fast.

Busy weird week ahead. One solo shearing set up for tuesday and a big shearing day with J set for Friday. Then I'll be at MD Sheep and Wool on Sunday, so if you happen to be going, feel free to message and we can meet up for a bit!

March Crafting Goals

Spin something (so many options!) and ply the one thing still to go, skein, wash and label all the yarns - spun three things! and skeined, washed and labeled all the yarns
Finish tablet weaving - Done! and started another
Process the alpaca fleece (3.3 pounds!) - worked on it!
Crochet the mittens - worked on these a little bit
Weave the plaid - finished! will make a separate post about it shortly
Knit the sweater - worked on it! sleeves are going faster now

SO many things done this month! Lots of pictures

Spun this month, I started with 2.85 oz of Icelandic that I bought at Rhinebeck (NY Sheep and Wool Festival) back in idek 2018 maybe. I enjoyed the festival but there were So Many People so I haven't been back. I started spinning it fine but it was slightly felted and difficult to spin fine so I switched it up. I spun it thick on my Eel Wheel 6 and then took the fine spun bit and plyed it with the thick stuff for a little bit of spiral ply yarn. The rest of the thick yarn I left as singles and agitated it slightly when I washed it to hopefully felt it a tiny bit. 130 yards of thick singles, 38 yards of spiral ply, somewhere between worsted and bulky weight.

The skein on the right needed to be skeined and washed from February. It is Corriedale from AngelLocks Fiberworks, it was pin drafted roving that was annoying to spin at first. I chain plyed it and it is slightly lighter than fingering weight. 4 oz and 426 yards

Three skeins of yarn on a mesh grey chair. From left to right they are white singles puffy yarn, white spiral ply yarn where the thicker ply puffs around the thinner ply, and purple to grey gradient yarn that is smooth.

Three skeins of yarn on a mesh grey chair. From left to right they are white singles puffy yarn, white spiral ply yarn where the thicker ply puffs around the thinner ply, and purple to grey gradient yarn that is smooth.

( Read more... )

April Goals

Spin something and ply the Montadale
Work on tablet weaving
Get Romney on the loom
Knit sweater
Process alpaca fleece (I want to try and get this done quickly to start another fleece for an event but we'll see)
Crochet mittens

February goals

Spin something after the current project (and skein, ply and label all the yarns sitting around) - Spun 4 oz of fluff to yarn and chain plyed it, finished and plyed the 8 oz of targhee, skeined, washed and labeled all the yarns
finish tablet weaving project - I don't think I worked on this at all, oh well
start processing a fleece - just started combing an alpaca fleece today! Combed one load, spun it on a spindle and need to ply to see how I want to spin it. Leaning towards 2 ply for warp
crochet on the mittens - worked on it! got past the thumb hole on one, getting close to thumb hole on the other. I like these a lot
weave on the plaid - worked on it! Might be halfway
knit sweater - finished the body! bound it off last night and picked up the sleeves. need to divide my yarn ball and then decide which brown will be the rest of the sleeves

Pictures
Skeins of yarn that were sitting around, light grey and brown/black for tablet weaving. Those were sitting on bobbins in the way, so I skeined them to clear them off. I want to get a cone winder at some point because they should be on cones. The blue is the chain plyed merino, finally washed.

Three skeins of yarn sit on a grey mesh chair. From right to left, light grey, brown/black and blue. The grey and black skeins are spun very fine compared to the blue.

Three skeins of yarn sit on a grey mesh chair. From right to left, light grey, brown/black and blue. The grey and black skeins are spun very fine compared to the blue.

( Read more... )

March Crafting Goals

Spin something (so many options!) and ply the one thing still to go, skein, wash and label all the yarns
Finish tablet weaving
Process the alpaca fleece (3.3 pounds!)
Crochet the mittens
Weave the plaid
Knit the sweater

December goals

Finish Romney fleece???? - I would need to wait to ply since a friend is borrowing my electric wheel for a while. That's okay, I can at least finish the singles. - singles done!
Start tablet woven band - fully wove one and started a second
fix and finish weaving on big loom- done! Just need to hemstitch and cut off
Process alpaca fleece - making progress! I've got maybe 1/3 of it left
Ball navajo churro yarn for weaving next - to do over holiday break at my parents - mostly done, just finishing up some of the weft, need to figure out yardage and start warping!
Crochet something - start building my crochet tolerance back up now that my wrist feels better - crocheted a scarf!
Knit sweater - still in progress
Bonus: spun 4 oz of carded merino that has been sitting around for a bit. I carded it since it had felted very badly in the top braid and it turned out super nice

Romney fleece spun up, 30 oz, once I get my electric wheel back from B (she just texted me about it and will be sending it with her family that lives near here so I will have it back soon!!!), I will do a 4 ply.

Six tan bobbins holding a lot of grey singles yarn on a wood background.

Six tan bobbins holding a lot of grey singles yarn on a wood background.

( Read more... )
January goals

Finish tablet woven band, it's very tiny and will take a while, start another?
Crochet something? maybe mittens or socks
Warp on new big loom project - Navajo Churro handspun yard for plaid twill for a big pillow
Spin stuff - just started spinning grey romney fleece combing waste that I carded, want to spin something else next
Finish processing alpaca fleece
knit sweater

I did so much??? For some reason, November felt wildly busy.

November Goals

Spin grey Romney fleece - 4 out of 6 bobbins done and the blobs in the box are getting quite low
Finish tablet weaving project? - DONE WOW. turns out when you work on something, it is easier to get it done
knit sweater - still working on it, I have a crop top sweater now
process fleece - I think I worked on this once
finish 4oz test comb for timing - done and did a second one of Teeswater
start a crochet project - hat and scarf for gifts? - did a crochet hat and a knit hat, no pictures because they aren't 100% done. I need to put a lining in the crochet hat

Other things: big loom weaving!
Pictures!

Grey Romney! I think I've finally earmarked this fleece for a big snuggly cardigan that I can wear over other layers. I will either do a 3 ply or 4 ply depending on what weight I want. Two more bobbins to go since this is a little over 20 oz, with another 10oz to spin. I shouldn't need extra yarn but if I do, I have 10 oz of carded combing waste from the same fleece.

Four storage bobbins are sitting on a slate floor, they are filled with variable light grey singles yarn

Four storage bobbins are sitting on a slate floor, they are filled with variable light grey singles yarn

( Read more... )

December goals

Finish Romney fleece???? - I would need to wait to ply since a friend is borrowing my electric wheel for a while. That's okay, I can at least finish the singles.
Start tablet woven band
fix and finish weaving on big loom
Process alpaca fleece
Ball navajo churro yarn for weaving next - to do over holiday break at my parents
Crochet something - start building my crochet tolerance back up now that my wrist feels better
Knit sweater

This is a bunch of stuff I've done in the past few months. Oh god, so many pictures. ( Read more... )

Current plans in progress or next to work on: knitting a colorwork hat to practice colorwork, spinning the Corriedale fleece blobs, spinning the spindle spins, after Corriedale blobs spin flax, start combing another fleece, tablet weave with the embroidery floss, once the multicolored jacob is plyed and finished, weave a big project with it (3 feet wide). So you know, just a few things to do :)

It arrived!!! I’m making this post two weeks after it arrived but hey, whatever.
I backed the Electric Eel Wheel 6.0 Kickstarter back in June 2020. From what I can tell from the updates, for the most part everything went smoothly with production and there was only a month delay from the estimated delivery due to the global freaking pandemic. Not bad. Mine arrived March 31th, a day before it was estimated to be delivered so I was super jazzed.( Read more... )

Flax splicing research article here and a less scientific article here

Essentially you can make super super fine fibers by splicing instead of drafting and I wanted to see if I could do it. I've been doing a bunch of reading up on it and various techniques in various places.

Initial thoughts on my experimenting, I did a little bit of it, maybe 10 minutes of splicing per “ply”. I did a two strand yarn:

Splicing: My technique after I fiddled with it a bit was to have the splicing end in my left hand and the already spliced fiber working through my right hand. My right hand was the wetting hand. I held the fibers between my pointer and thumb fingers with my palms up. I overlapped the fiber by 2-3 inches and pinched the end of the already spliced with my left hand and rolled the fiber between my left fingers while moving my right hand along the two spliced fibers to wet them and let the twist move along them. I twisted them in the S direction and let the extra twist run out the end of the unspliced fiber. I really want to try this with unhackled fiber because the split ends of the fibers really were difficult to smooth together. I just let the fiber pool into my lap although I will need to figure out a way to wind as I go I think.

At this point, I can probably say that the balls were stored dry because by the time I got around to wrapping the fibers into a ball, they had dried already. The joins were strong enough to hold up to gentle tugging as I wrapped it up.

Splicing was a success! Twisting, not so much

I made some mistakes with the ply balls, originally planning to put them on a dowel but it caught on the dowel and didn’t turn. The other issue is that the fiber soaked up the water extremely quickly and became very difficult to work with and I lost the ends more than once. I did many things wrong with this but I was able to do four arms length of twisting. My lightest spindle is also slightly too heavy I think, but I didn’t break the fiber during twisting so maybe not. I still haven’t figured out how much twist to put in but I think that will be something to figure out when I have more strands to work with. My “bowl” was just a shallow plate with a dowel secured across so the threads could run under it, would probably work better with larger balls.

I did make some yarn, but I’ve got some more figuring to do. Current problems to solve: figure out how to wind as I go, figure out actual ball winding and figure out appropriate amount of water to use in the bowl for how much fiber I’m using.

So I've got more to do and it was fun!

I think my biggest gripe with DW as a platform is the difficulty of photo uploads. Like, I have to use a third party and link it and what a pain that is. At some point I started doing all my picture uploads to PF and copying everything over here so it would use pillowforts stuff

and now I'm sad pillowfort is down so let me see if I can grab a photo using twitter

White yarn on a brown spinning wheel bobbin.

White yarn on a brown spinning wheel bobbin.

This is my current spinning project! I will post about it later but this is my first time working with (washed) fleece and carding it myself then spinning!

Found a flax gem on a forum:

"Classic European way to spin line is on a low-whorl or all-in-one spindle with either a body-braced or a free-standing distaff and grasped or very short suspended. Using the traditional tools makes a big difference here. The ancient Egyptian way to spin flax was to select fibers from retted stems, overlap/splice and wind into a roving ball, and then add twist with a top-whorl spindle. It helps to have a fiber-wetting bowl -- the ball sits in a little puddle of water in a ceramic bowl that has a loop in the base. The roving goes under the loop so as to get nicely wet. Note that there is no drafting with this method, just splicing and twisting. I’ve approximated it by selecting fibers from a strick, and you can get a really, really fine thread. But I’ve yet to do it from retted stems. "

now this is from some rando on the internet but interesting and worth a try!

I started working on a fleece.

So I bought a washed shetland fleece a few weeks ago and the hand cards back in December. Hand cards were $45 with shipping and that was a great deal. I planned to get some in March or April but the price was good.

The fleece was a 1 lb 8oz and I was told it had 2-3 inch staples.

I was in the middle of a difficult spinning project when it arrived so I took a quick look at it and put it away.

Then yesterday, I pulled it out and started looking it over. First thing I noticed was that there was no obvious head or butt end, which I expected given that it is a washed fleece. It seems to be a tiny bit felted in the cut ends of locks, probably was handled a little bit before it was fully dry but who knows, that might be how it goes.

More pictures ahoy

( Read more... )

I have most of the gifts ordered and on their way. They all should arrive in the next two weeks but we will see. I have one more physical thing order to make that I might send to my parents place. Isocation is in two and a half weeks oh boy.

I'm making packing lists and I need to start looking at parks in the area where I'm staying so the dog and I can leave the house for something. I think we'll be fine but parks in December should be pretty empty, bigger concern will be if any are open to the public.

I will be making food the weekend before, yogurt primarily since I don't know if I'll be able to make yogurt at Isocation House and it stores better than milk anyway. Also a big pot of brown rice and beans. I won't be bringing my instant pot and it makes the best textured brown rice and beans so I'm bringing other rice to make later. I need to email my mom the things I'd like her to get from the grocery store for my arrival to their place. Mostly yogurt.

Of course, I've been reading the horror stories on the internet about people who caught covid while meeting up with relatives so that's making me nervous.

But my plan is solid. I won't be going into any stores or restaurants after Dec 6th, no shopping, no takeout, masks all the time while walking the dog. I will be loading up my truck and driving 2.5 hours to isocation house, no gas station stops needed. I will be staying in the isocation house, and only going to parks where no one else is and masked. I will be bringing all my food and dog supplies with me. If I need to get fuel, I won't go inside the gas station and I'm sanitizing before and after touching things. After the two weeks, I'm going to pack up, drive the last hour to my parents place.

Only potential concern is arrival and when the person may have cleaned the isocation house before I get there. But I plan to ask them and see what they say and adjust plans as needed

I'm also taking all this week off work for relaxing time. I already starting baking things, cornmeal shortbread cookies and pepitas tonight. Pepitas are being split between

dragonlady7 , who I'm seeing tomorrow (outside, masked) and my parents, which I will mail.

Food plans are also a ham, which is currently defrosted. Mashed sweet potatoes for Jade. Mashed potatoes for me. Maybe some kind of corn dish. Ice cream since I have a million egg whites. Possibly squash pie but I might flip through some recipes I have saved and cookbooks and see what gets my interest.

I spent all day yesterday playing video games, which hasn't happened in a long time. It was fun. I've also been spinning some of the flax that B and I have been working on and it's turning out really well. There's definitely a learning curve on spinning it that is very different than wool or ramie plan fibers. Better than the ramie types for sure. It's so dang slow though. I'm a little concerned I'm not putting enough twist in it because the ply checks don't look quite right but it's enough twist to hold together. I'm going to recheck one of my spinning books tonight and see what it says.

There's like three antique spinning wheels within an hour drive that have popped up that look reasonably working and reasonably priced and I desperately want them.

I don't need them AT ALL and quite literally don't have any space for them

but I want them

I started with two braids (8oz total) from Llady Llama Fiber Co, colorway was Clockwork on their Targhee base. I went looking for the pictures of the braids and I took those March 22nd. I pulled apart the braids, spun them as a gradient and made a 2 ply fingering weight yarn. I crocheted it using the pattern of Blurred Lines by Deanne Ramsey, completely ignoring the colorwork and some of the minor details. I liked the shaping and neckline (why so many wide neck sweaters pattern writers?).

( Read more... )

Let's see if the pictures work since I c/p from pillowfort where they were posted

I haven't posted about fiber I've spun since I was in the doldrums of the Romeldale/CVM in June. As it turns out, it wanted to be spun very fine and you can spin 1000 yards of 2 ply yarn from 4oz of fiber. Wild.

( Lots of pictures below )

Made an extravagant purchase of roving to spin. Like, a huge amount in comparison to what I normally get. But fuck it. I got 16 news breeds to try spinning which is very exciting.

It has been Some Time since my last spinning roundup. I did many things in the past almost two months. Spinning has been a wonderful distraction, especially when work is slow but I might need to stop and answer emails. ( A Lot of Pictures )

Finally, I finished the blanket I've been working on for two months. I made it with all the alpaca yarn I had and the black section is some I spun up. It is around 5 feet across and super warm. The pattern is Rings of Change. I made it to row 60ish of 110.

My next spinning is already underway, I'm doing a lazy gradient of some dyed targhee and spinning it thicker so it will be super poofy after finishing. It's a very bright yellow. I have Plans to buy a fuckton of roving this next week or two because I got my stimulus check and I plan to help stimulate the economy. Especially since the MD Sheep & Wool is having a virtual festival this weekend and I had planned to go down there.

It was fun!

I took Llady Llama's Targhee base dyed in Manta (white to dark blue), 8 ounces of it in two braids.

A white to blue braid of fiber rests next to a bobbin of spun fiber on a spinning wheel.

A white to blue braid of fiber rests next to a bobbin of spun fiber on a spinning wheel.

( Read more... )

I finished a bunch of fiber last weekend. Finishing is the actual process of hot soaking spun yarn to set the twist, poof it up if it's prone to it and get the full characteristics of the yarn set before used as a finished product.

So I did some of the project fibers that I've been working on, Icelandic, Angora rabbit and Herdwick, all of which had been plyed and were just sitting there. And then some BFL and Cormo that were from dyers. I got some Zwartbles singles spun for the project, just needs to be plyed and I'm currently working on some purple mystery fiber that is spinning extremely fine. No pics of those though. I'll post them another day.

I'm also almost done with a sweater with some of the blue/white handspun targhee and as it turns out, the most annoying thing is getting the sleeves finished. I'll probably get that done today or tomorrow.
( Lots of pictures )

my favorite fiber dyer has just discontinued the base fiber that I liked so much :'(

they're switching entirely to merino or blends with nylon, which. fine I guess.

They just aren't my favorite to spin because they are much better suited to short draw and I only really do long draw. You can long draw them, but its much more difficult.

now there's the decision of: do I buy the discontinued fibers that are left in their shop or do I stick to my resolution not to buy fiber until may?

I did just spend a ton of money on seed orders......and I already have a ton of fiber.......

(is this what fomo is)

ugh

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It is a mystery

Entries tagged with spinning

The weather, onions and spinning

March Crafting Update and April Goals

February Crafting Update and March Goals

December Crafting Update and January Goals

November Crafting Update and December Goals

Fiber Roundup

Electric Wheel!

Flax Splicing

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Another rabbit hole awaits

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Quarantine Sweater

Fiber roundup

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Spinning Roundup

I made a sweater!

Fiber roundup

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June 2025

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