Happy New Year, fellow spinsters. What are you up to these days? Did you gift any cool handspun projects for Christmas? Did you get any cool fiber (or tools)?
I finally brought my wheel back out and have been trying to to a little bit at least every day since Tuesday. I am trying for a sock yarn using my Greenwood Fiberworks Superwash B FL/nylon prize fiber from SDF 2021. It is coming along. The color way is called Enchanted.
My DIL gifted me an Andean plyer for Christmas. You can see it in this demo,
That will be so pretty! Can’t wait to see what the end result is!
That is really handy! I’ve done Andean ply on my hands, but this would be a bit more convenient.
I’m getting back into the groove. Working on some new fiber for me this weekend–it’s a combo of neppy viscose and silk. A bit of a learning curve for me. After doing some online learning (YouTube) I found that it works best for me to spin from the fold, as well as it needs a tighter spin, so I have it down on the 3rd (from the largest) whorl. I just seemed to keep fighting it when spinning from the end, with patches of fiber that just want to be in clumps. Also I’ve learned to really keep a tight pinch on the fiber; otherwise, it will spin into the loose fiber and is almost impossible to get it loose again to re-spin it. It is a pretty fiber and I have no idea what I’m going to do with it yet. I had planned to go to the Fiberkind retreat this weekend and get a bunch of it spun, but hubby came down with covid and I think I might be getting it as well. Thankfully, he seems to be on the mend, and I think mine is pretty mild so far; (tested negative twice, but still feel it coming on a bit, so we’ll see–I plan to re-test tomorrow) So just decided to make this my spinning retreat at home!
Not a great picture but pretty accurate colorwise. It is approx 325 yds of fingeringish weight.
Beautiful. It looks like something Summery!
Thanks! I agree about the summery look! Maybe a summer sweater (if there’s enough of it)
So pretty! I love pretty much all the colors in there.
That is gorgeous…love the colors.
I’ve always done the plying bracelet on my hand … but I can see how the tool would be nice, especially if you can’t finish all in one sitting.
So where are they posting about the retreats? Is there a thread where you hear about the next one?
I just received a hackle and a blending board today … can’t wait to carve out some time to play with color blending 
Yay! Looking forward to your experiments.
Okay, Here is my spinning experiment. I used 4 Merino Braids, and split them in half.
Then I used one half to blend on my hackles, and the other half to blend on my blending board. I used the same color order on both.
I then tried to spin them the same thickness singles, and chain plied to finish.
I was pretty close on thickness… one is 60g and 60 yards the other is 59g and 72 yards. so pretty close. both worsted/aran weight.
Very nice!
Which blending technique did you like best? When I tried the blending board the first few times, I pulled my “rolls” tightly, I think I did finally spin it, though. Which one did you like
Very nice!
Which blending technique did you like best? When I tried the blending board the first few times, I pulled my “rolls” tightly, I think I did finally spin it, though. Which one did you like
I had a hard time getting the hackles just right this time, (don’t remember having that problem a couple of years ago in class) but I think I was loading the hackles too much, so there was too much tension and it wouldn’t pull through the diz (a button) right. I also think I need an actual diz or a larger button, as I was getting fiber from around the outside of the button, and not just through the hole.
The rolags were easier to get the hang of, but again I overloaded in some areas, so I need to work on keeping it loaded more evenly.
I like how the rolags spun up better, I like the separation of colors and how “clean” it looks.
Both were fun, but the rolags were smoother for some reason, and Iwould have expected the hackles to spin up smoother. I need more practice I guess.