The Blue Leicester is all spun!!! In a long session this evening, with just a couple of breaks, I spun the last 2 ounces. So I’m all ready to try the 3-ply tomorrow. Yay!
Then I’ll be ready to move on to my next practice wool, literally labeled “Heinz 57” wool top. So it’s from mystery sheep, but should be good for spinning. The term “top” means it’s been washed, carded, and combed so that it’s just long fibers, and they should all be going in the same direction.
Until tomorrow.
Today I finished the second bobbin for the 3-ply finale for the Blue Leicester, and started the third. I’m spinning thin again for sure, but I really think it’s good. I’ll know soon if I’m kidding myself!
Last night I was looking through a book on spinning that a kind friend gave me, and I’m appreciating it on a whole new level. It has some really good technical tips that address some of the things I’ve been noticing. For example, it talks about the tension band and what happens as the bobbin fills up – the adjustments that need to be made at different points. That specific info helped me understand and solve a problem I’ve been having when I start a new bobbin. I need to tell her “thank you” again.
Until tomorrow.
Today feels like longer than 30 days since I started this. Today’s practice went MUCH better than yesterday, thank goodness. I noticed that I’ve been spinning thinner again – not really on purpose, but now with more control than I had before. So we’ll see what happens when I ply it – am I just kidding myself? Will I have the breakage that I had before?
But really, I prefer the thinner size. I’m pretty sure when I do the 3-ply with the thinner yarn, it will give me the worsted weight I want. So it’s sort of nice to have the option – 2-ply for DK weight, 3-ply for worsted. And I know people spin even THINNER – I was reading someone’s blog where she talked about spinning so thin that at 2-ply it was lace weight. Yikes! Right now I can barely imagine doing that.
Until tomorrow.
You know the old saying: “Two steps forward, one step back”? Today’s practice felt like the one step back. It took me a while to get my rhythm, and I made several dumb mistakes. One of them more than once.
BUT I keep on showing up and doing the footwork, and today’s mistakes were not as bad as last week’s.
Until tomorrow.
I’m almost at the end of the Blue Leicester wool, and I’ve decided that the next time I ply I’m going to try a three-ply yarn, and use the Lazy Kate that came with my spinning wheel. What’s a Lazy Kate? It holds bobbins of spun fiber, and allows you to pull evenly from each bobbin as you ply. At least, that’s the theory. This one has “tensioning”, which is good, it helps keep the process under control.
So, in the interest of seeing if I can make the three come out more or less the same length, I weighed out the rest of the wool so I have about the same amount for each of the other two bobbins as I have spun on this one. Today’s practice went well, by the way, I’m really doing better at keeping the size even on a consistent basis and going a LOT faster with it.
Today’s picture shows the bobbin from the last few days of spinning on its spindle on the Lazy Kate.
Until tomorrow.
I did SO much better today at keeping the yarn even! I really could tell that I was staying right on top of it. My worst problem (so far) has been when too many fibers get caught in the twist before I could stop them, meaning one of two things: I have a thicker section that makes the yarn uneven, OR I stop and let it unwind and then draft it out so that it’s more even.
Today I did a really good job of catching those before they got into the twist, meaning a more even yarn without having to stop and fix it. Yeah. Plus I was faster today too, hooray for practice.
Today’s picture shows me pinching the fiber on its way into the orifice, which is how it twists and winds onto the bobbin.
Until tomorrow.
I promise I am not showing the same pictures over and over! Every day I take a new picture of that day’s work… they look a lot the same because I am working my way through a pound of this Blue Leicester wool. At around an ounce a day, or a little less, that’s a couple of weeks (really a bit more). I’m more than half way through it, then I have another pound of practice wool of a different sort, and after THAT another pound and another half-pound! Each a different kind. THEN maybe I’ll trust myself to try the good stuff. The beautiful stuff. Yeah.
Anyway, I worked hard today to keep the yarn even, and I think I did better. Although when I spin at the end of the day, like today, I find myself drifting a bit, mentally, after a while and then I get into trouble. Autopilot just isn’t as good, yet, as it will be when I get more focused practice under my belt.
Until tomorrow.
Today I spun a bit to finish the bobbin I’ve been working on, then plied it. I’m happy to say that this yarn came out pretty well. It didn’t break at all, I managed to avoid that “too-thin” problem entirely. Yay!
There were also some good stretches of fairly even size, another victory. There were more instances of thicker-than-average size than I’d hoped for, so now I have more information about what to watch for when that’s happening.
Overall, I’d say this came out closer to a worsted weight, which is fine. I actually prefer that weight for most of what I knit.
Until tomorrow.
I felt today during my practice time like I had longish intervals where I was really keeping the yarn even. That was great. Sadly, it wasn’t the WHOLE time. But, I’ll take it. Tomorrow night I’ll spin some more onto this bobbin, then ply it. See how well I’m really doing.
Until tomorrow.
Continued with the thicker spinning today. I *think* I’m getting more even, but I won’t know for sure until I ply it. I’m definitely getting through the wool faster, which means more wool is traveling into the yarn at once, so I go through the same amount of wool quicker.
I’m also definitely avoiding those VERY thin places that are problematic. So that’s really good. I’m also finding that as I work, it’s better to feed in steadily after each slide, instead of pinch-and-slide two or three times before letting it go in. I’m not sure why, but that just seems to work better.
Until tomorrow.
