Soy!

Ok, so clearly I need some practice with the whole consistent-yarn-diameter thing. Whatever.



Soy fibers are way easier to spin than 10 year old wool. At some points, though, it would just get so thin that I had to stop and literally cut it so I could start again from a higher point. I say cut it because neither I, nor Adam, could break the single thread by pulling on it. Crazy!



I read some horror stories that soy can take up to a week to dry after you ply and soak it, and that it can congeal into a gross mass during the process. Thankfully, neither of those things happened.

I have a lot of soy left, so this is an experiment that I will be repeating shortly, and hopefully with better results. During the plying process, there was some tangling and some breaking and some hasty tying. Kind of tragic.

Either way, here's a close-up of my 95% dry soy yarn. I wound up with almost exactly 100 yards.

In which the pictures look shockingly similar to the first post

So, I want to break these things up into separate projects, though this is more of an extension of the first. After I plied and hung up yesterday's yarn to dry, I began carding some more from the same bag of raw wool. I also had some dyed light green wool (back of the minivan) and some bright blue corriedale which (wait for it...) I actually purchased from a yarn shop in Troy, NY (Thank you, Lana!) and did NOT get out of a vehicle in a parking lot. Look how pretty:



So while I was carding the superold white and grey wool, I threw in pinches of blue and green corriedale. I went to town spinning that stuff last night and I really, really liked the way it looked on the bobbins. If I hadn't woken up this morning and plied it before I even had coffee, I would put in a picture of that. Next time.

Anyway, I had spun two half-bobbins (or so I thought) worth of single ply yarn last night in pretty white, grey, brown, blue, and green. I already know that the very important overnight setting of the twist is going to be the hardest part of this whole process. As I said, I woke up this morning and plied the singles and completely filled my bobbin, grinding the wheel to a halt. There wasn't that much of the singles left, but it was enough that I was kicking myself a little.

Onto the niddy noddy, which I learned yesterday measures the yarn roughly into yards. By my incredibly unscientific estimation (factoring in trying to count while getting my whole upper body tangled in yarn and cursing) I made 92 yards of this stuff.

Wash, soak, rinse



Hang to dry



Here's a close-up, so you can see what the colors did.



It's interesting, but still inconsistent and still a bit fuzzy for my taste. I also started playing around with soy fibers last night, which appear to be making something completely different.

Experiments in spinning really old wool

For the last couple of years I have been stocking up on fiber whenever I go to any kind of knitting/yarn/wool store or festival. I really, really wanted to buy a spinning wheel - eventually. In my mind it was one of those purchases that came after the mortgage I don't yet have was under control, and the student loans were paid off. Spinning wheels are expensive, and fiber isn't cheap. Unfortunately, I have no self-control.



You might notice that there are boxes everywhere. That's because I would rather play with wool than unpack. See above re: self-control.

The woman that I bought the wheel from (used) gave me a few bags of wool she had lying around in her basement with the wheel. For anyone who cares, it's an Ashford Traditional that she hadn't touched since she became pregnant with her son. I met him during the exchange and would put him in 3rd or 4th grade. Long time for this thing to be sitting in a basement.

I bought the wheel a month and a half ago, but I neglected to buy carders, mostly because there weren't any in the back of the woman's minivan when I bought the wheel. Friday, when I got home from work, I had a package from my boyfriend - beautiful curved carders. He gets extra points for thoughtfulness.

I carded some raw wool from WheelLady on Friday night (because my social calendar is clearly packed). It was mostly white and light grey, with some browns and blacks that I blended in. I really, really didn't know what I was doing. I spun it onto two bobbins (back of the minivan) and let it sit overnight, because that's what the only spinning book I own said to do. In the morning I plied it, strung it up on my niddy noddy (back of the minivan, too) and then ran to find my book because I had no idea what to do next.

Thankfully, I had everything I needed in the house. I soaked the yarn in some hot water with dish soap for awhile:



Then vinegar, then hot water. I patted it dry with an old towel and then gave it a few snaps and hung it up to dry:



I let it hang overnight and took it down this morning. It's messy and it's inconsistent, but it is definitely yarn.