Tag: craft
Fancy yarn workshop; spinning boucle yarn
Yesterday I had a fab time at a workshop learning to spin fancy yarns. We only managed boucle and slub but that was so rewarding. The workshop was organised by the Brighton and Hove Textile Arts Group and hosted by Spring Farm Alpacas in Fletching West Sussex. Ann Dishman led the workshop and provided Blue Faced Leicester tops, still various and other threads for us to spin with.
Although I have spun both types of yarns before, I learned a lot and really enjoyed having four hours in which to practise the techniques. I also found out that Ann had been taught to spin by my spinning hero, Mabel Ross, which made me extremely envious.
Unwashed soft slub; Blue Faced Leicester singles with a fine industrial wool binder.
I took my Louet Victoria travel wheel and at usual she spin well and reliably, it was the user who made the mistakes!
Rya weave cushion completed
Although it’s taken me a while I have finally finished this cushion.
The front is Rya tufted and woven with a British wool rug yarn on a linen/cotton warp. The black tufts are Shetland staples and the cream is a mixture of Devon/Dorset staples. Although it’s not that clear in the photo, the squares are reversed; black edging with a cream centre and cream edging with a black centre.
The reverse of the cushion is a faux waffle weave in the same rug yarn that underlies the Rya tufts. Because my rigid heddle loom is only a 20 inch wide, the cushion is composed of four pieces.
Instead of feathers or polyester wadding, the cushion is filled with a pad of lofty carded wool fleece. I will use this cushion to make my chair extra comfortable whilst spinning at my wheel.
Weaving today for a relaxing time
Today is ‘me time’, weaving with a local group, mostly members of the West Sussex Guild. Although I love knitting, it can sometimes seem like work because of my teaching and writing career. Weaving however, is a new skill to learn just for pleasure. Even though I haven’t heard grasped all the basics I am having fun designing fabrics using the simpler techniques.
Typically I have already acquired two kinds, both rigid heddle type, but perfect for my early steps.
‘Single and Double Bed Machine Knitting; the Designer’s Guide’
The advance copy of my new book arrived today, and you can see some pages from the book here.
Meanwhile here is a quick look at the book.
I have made a more in depth video introduction to the book, and if you would like to watch this, please keep on scrolling down the page.
Acid dyeing session
Having acquired a Devon/Cornwall fleece that is quite similar to a Romney in feel and quality, I thought I’d dye some for blending. This fine will be great to comb for a semi-worsted spun yarn.
One of my favourite methods for safely dyeing fleece without matting the fibres is to use a slow cooker. I have a large family sized one that will dye 100g comfortably and 150g at a pinch, and a single-person one that does 20g for samples etc.
Using a pre-mixed colour I’ve used before I did a blue first. However, on this fleece it came out darker than I anticipated, but will probably lighten up once combed or carded and spun.
From the remains of the dyebath I got a pretty light turquoise.
I have combed these colours as shown in this video.
I hoped.
I also wanted an olive green, and have a recipe that worked perfectly on a Dorset fleece last year. I must have made a mistake somewhere, because I got a dark green instead. Maybe it is the different fleece, but I think I got my proportions wrong!
Once again they was some colour left in the bath, so in went 100g of Dorset fleece. OMG, the colour was bright! No idea what I did wrong, but it makes me blink.
That bright green total exhausted the dye – no surprise really! I will probably card this as the staples of the Dorset fleece are short and it is a soft fibre. Great for soft woollen spun yarn.
If you are interested in discovering the difference between different terms such as roving, tops etc, click here to read Abby Franquemont on Spin Off.
Spinning outdoors,(well almost) – on my Ashford Espinner
Its a mix of rain and sun this afternoon, and we are in our caravan so I decided to do some spinning on my Ashford Espinner. I’ve brought four Frankenstein batts I carded from a mixture of old cream Jacobs and two pink and orange poorly dyed batches of Dorset fleece. Plus a small amount of a pretty olive green. The poorly dyed had nepps from the partial felting, and I kept some of these when carding to add texture.
These were all carded on the electric from carder in stripes. I ended up with four largish batts which I split and spun as rolags.
Below you can see how I split the batts and I worked out the TPI of the singles on the espinner.
Author’s not: I originally intended to upload this as a ‘story’ post, but after the uploads gobbled up my mobile data and it still didn’t work properly I decided to make it a normal post.
For this singles I wanted around 8 TPI, and I had already measured my drafting of 2″ lengths at about 40 which equals me 80″ per minute. So I multiplied the TPI x draft length per minute
8 x 80 = 640.
So I set my speed dial to where I know I get about 640rpm. Its not exact, but neither is it on a wheel, but it gave a pretty good average of 8TPI.
I plan to ply this with a plain colour, otherwise the colours become overwhelmed by each other. Maybe a rust or cream, or even a black?
Update. I eventually plied it with a Dorset singles from my stash. Made 70g of very useable yarn or approximately 7 TPI, 8 WPI and 20 degree angle of twist.
Suint bath and lovely locks
I’ve been running a suint bath for washing fleeces this summer. Whilst the temperatures are reasonably good the suint has worked well. I’ve actually finished washing all the fleeces now so we’ll probably use the diluted suint bath as fertilizer.
Suint is explained it chemical terms by other people far better than me, but basically it means that the fleece soaks in a liquor composed of the sweat and dirt and developing microbes. The bath is built up from other fleeces. I use the dirtiest fleece first as that made the best base for the suint and have worked through 5 fleeces weighing about 1-2 kg each before going into the bath. I skirt and sort the fleece first because I don’t see the point in washing really dirty stuff that’s never going to come clean, but I equally try to preserve as much of the fleece as possible. I’ve got a bucket of the really unsalvageable stuff soaking so that I can use that liquid as a fertiliser as well.
I didn’t take a photograph of the locks of this Scoth Mule fleece before the suint bath so can’t make a comparison but it has come up beautifully clean.
My process was as follows. I laid The fleece out on a mesh grid cleaned as much of the dirt out as I could by shaking it and then skirted it. Next I sorted it into qualities, picked out as much vegetable matter as I could. Each quality was put into several smallish mesh laundry bags and then into the suint in manageable quantities. The suint bath really stinks, which I think must be caused by ammonia, as it makes my eyes water!
I left the fleece in the suint for 5 to 7-days then using rubber gloves and, with a peg on my nose, I removed it and left it to drain. Once it was drained, I rinsed it in a couple of changes of clean, cold water. Because I didn’t want to put the stinky mess in spin dryer I swung and it around to remove excess water.
Next I washed the fleece in batches in hot water with Eurolana wool wash. This is good as it cleans well without loads of suds so rinses out easily. The smell was slowly fading, but even after two rinses it lingered.
A final spin and then the fleece was emptied out of the mesh bags into a two-tiered flat mesh dryer. This goes outside and by the time the fleeces are dry the smell has gone. Phew.
Distaffs
I recently read an article in SpinOff about distaffs and decided to try using one when spinning in a wheel, not just on a drop spindle. Luckily I had a handy drumstick lying around that I use to roll rolags off the blending board and it is just about the right length and weight. Its varnished surface also helps the wool slide off easily as I take it from the distaff.
At the moment I am spinning Ryeland fleece and have been preparing batts on the drum carder. I used to be able to take a roving off but since the carder was motorised its not so easy as it won’t rotate freely. So now I split the batts into narrower lengths to wind around the distaff. This seems to work OK and after a spray with spinning oil I find the fibre supply much easier to handle in this manner. Using my (new) large double drive wheel I get a good speed up and even doing short draft can spin a surprising amount, (for me anyway) at a sitting.
I will carry on with this and see how it works out. I may even get to attach the distaff to one of the wheel uprights which might be even more efficient.
Distaff held in my waistband, but sometimes under my arm or in my outside fingers.
Vikki Haffenden 