Spinning some Romney, Silk & Linen fibre

I bought this fibre nearly 5 years ago and have finally gotten around to spinning it up.  

There are two braids and due to how it has been dyed, in a kind of splodgy fashion, I decided to Fractal spin it, which is a way to split the fibre braid up to manage the colours and amount of times that you split the braid can be adjusted if required.  

A basic Fractal spin is achieved by splitting the braid in half down the entire length and spinning one ply from one of those halves and then for the second ply you would normally split it 4 ways and spin them one after the other, starting from the same end as the 1st ply every time.  

For these braids, due to the colour distribution, I decided to split the first half into two lengths equally down the entire length and then spun them A-B and A-B.  For the second half I split it down the length 6 times and spun A-B, A-B, A-B, A-B, A-B, A-B in a bid to distribute the colours more evenly along the length of the finished yarn.  I worked both braids in this way.

The top bobbin is the second ply, with shorter colour changes.  The bottom bobbin is the first ply with the longer colour changes.

There is some visible colour differences between the two braids but if I use them together in one project I will alternate their use every 2 rows to blend and neutralise those differences.

It has come out to sport weight (12 wpi) with a combined total of 195g/546m and it is 50% Romney, 25% Silk, 25% Linen.

Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2023 Stage 10

The Cycling: Stage 10 is 167km of a hilly route that starts in Vulcania and ends in Issoire. 

The Daily Challenge: This will help you along a bit...grab two singles that you've spun so far and ply them together...huzzah! A finished yarn!

Suggested Fibre: Whatever you've created so far, or if you've got some in your stash, use those!

What I did

First of all I finished spinning yesterday's Fibonacci spin and then chain plied it.

The finished yarn is 50% Merino, 37.5% Bluefaced Leicester, 12.5% Swaledale, sport weight and 210m/94g.

The second yarn I plied today is the Fractal Spin from Stage 9

The finished yarn is 100% Superwash Merino, sport weight and 421m/110g.

Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2023 Stage 9

 The Cycling: Stage 9 is 184km of a mountain route that starts in Saint-Leonard-de-Noblat in west central France and ends in Puy de Dome, a volcano in central France.

The Daily Challenge: Have a go at Fractal Spinning - this is a great technique if you have some blocky-coloured tops to spin.

Suggested Fibre: Space dyed Mercury

What I did

I am going to tackle the challenge.  I've had to quickly learn what a Fractal Spin is and it's relatively simple. You do need a braid of fibre that has clumps of colour throughout the length of the braid or is constantly colour changing or a gradient braid could work as well.  A Fractal Spin is when you split the braid into two down the length of the braid.  Spin the first single from the end as it comes, you can pre-draft it first if you wish.  The second half of the braid needs to be split in half again down the length and then each of those two lengths are then split again down the length until you have a total of 4 long narrow strips of fibre.  Spin each of these in turn from the same end each time and from the same end of the braid that you started from for the first single. You then ply the two singles together.

I chose a braid of fibre that I bought not too long ago from a newly discovered Indie dyer.  It is called "Down the Garden" and is 100% Superwash Merino.

With both singles spun I put this to one side as it's late and I will have to ply it either tomorrow or another day.