Spinning the Dorset Down from Griffiths Mill

I thought I would spin the Dorset Down Roving that I picked up from the Griffiths Mill stall when we all went to the Staffordshire County Show back in the beginning of June.  It was a very very long, thin length of roving so I folded it in half and pulled the two halves apart at the fold.  I spun two singles and then plied them to achieve a 2ply yarn of worsted weight which gave me 128m from my 100g of roving.  Not super soft but not totally awful either, slightly crisp.

I made this braided cable hat from my wool.  Its a lovely snug fit and very warm.

Spinning with beads and experimenting

When I bought my Ashford Joy Spinning Wheel, I got some fibre samples with it, including some Merino Slivers and some Corriedale Slivers, just over 30g in each sample.

Top Row: Merino Sliver in shades Blueberry and Green Tea
Bottom Row: Corriedale Sliver in shades Raspberry and Cheesecake

I had seen someone showing off their spinning with beads on a forum and I was very intrigued with the idea and so I Googled for information about how to do it.  Armed with this new knowledge I spun the Merino as singles and then I started Navajo plying, adding beads every now and then by putting the loop through the bead, sliding the bead up to the last loop and then spinning up to the loop and pulling a new loop through as you normally would with Navajo plying.

This is the YouTube video that I used to learn how to add beads whilst Navajo plying.  I hope you also find it useful.

The Blueberry yarn is about 33m long and has alternate blue lustre glass and Haematite beads and the Green Tea yarn is about 39m long and has green lustre glass beads.

The two Corriedale Slivers, I spun from both at the same time to make a multi-coloured single and then Navajo plied it.  I am not overjoyed at the results but I called it Gryffindor for obvious reasons.

All three yarns were eventually used with lots of other yarns in small, striped projects.

Fairy Garden

I was shopping for some more spinning fibres on Etsy and I fell in love with these fibre batts from Weaving Me Home called Fairy Garden.  The description read "Like a walk through a magical spring garden, Fairy Garden combines Merino wool in a very light, pastel spring green with shimmering Angelina sparkles of light blue, lemon yellow, rosy pink and mint green".  That was it, those were now mine!

I've never spun from batts before, so this was new and I had to figure out just what to do with it.  I broke it down into sections and strips and spun it as a single and decided to leave it as single so once it was spun, I soaked it and then thwacked it, achieving 279m from 100g of fibre.  So, so pretty! 

This stayed in my stash for a while until I finally decided what to make with it.  I finally found the perfect pattern for this gorgeous yarn and made these fabulous bobble, cable and lace long-arm fingerless mitts.

Merino/Silk Blend Rainbow

I bought some lovely little packs of fibre from an online shop called The Rainbow Room in her closing down sale.  This rainbow coloured pack contained 8 different lots which each contained 4 or 5 different colours of Merino along with Tussah Silk, all blended together.  All in all this is a 70% Merino/30% Tussah Silk blend.

I sorted the little fibre balls into rainbow order and spun them in one long single and then I had another go a navajo plying to keep the colours in the order in which they were spun so it would look like a rainbow rather than the colours barber polling. 

I managed to get 96m from 111g and its about a worsted weight yarn and its really soft and squishy.

I wanted to make something that would show off the colours and finally settled on this simple lace scarf.

Shropshire Lambswool & Kid Mohair

I purchased some dyed roving from My Heart Exposed Yarns and Fibre.  I bought 100g of Shropshire Lambswool in colour-way "Mandy" and 70g of Kid Mohair in colour-way "Copper Halo".

I spun them as separate singles and I loved them both individually but decided to that I wanted to make another barber pole yarn and would ply them together.  

My barber pole yarn is 117g/164m and is a worsted weight yarn.  The left-over from the Shopshire Lambswool, I tried my hand at Navajo Plying, which is a form of 3-ply yarn made from a single ply using loops to create the 3 strands, and made a lovely bouncy yarn which is 53g/56m and also a worsted weight yarn.

I made a hat with my barber pole yarn.

Click to discover more about Shropshire Sheep

I've bought myself a set of Wool Combs

Since my last post, I have purchased a set of Valkyrie Extrafine Viking Wool Combs, after studying a chart posted on a Spinning Forum which detailed the results of a "study" about which type of Valkyrie combs worked best with the fleece of certain sheep breeds.  The heads are 5 inches wide with a 4 inch working width and contains 43 closely spaced 3 3/4 inch long hardened polished steel tines.  I bought the universal mounting pad too, which can be clamped onto a table.  They are not a cheap tool, at around £150 for the combs, pad and delivery within the UK.

British Wool Samples

As part of the promotion for the launch of The Campaign for Wool, the Wool Marketing Board in the UK offered some free samples on a first come, first served basis and I was lucky enough to get a pack.  The pack contained 6 different coloured wool samples but did not specify what breed they were from.  The white and the pink were both around 27g/28g each and the green and brown were both around 17g each.  The blue and the lilac I've already spun but forgot to weight them or take photos.

I spun them as singles and then plied the green and the brown together and the white and the pink together to make two barber pole yarns.  When I spun the white, I added a bit of Angelina in Mother of Pearl colourway as I spun.  The green/brown yarn is 38g/60m and about a Double Knit weight.  The pink/white yarn is 55g/71m and about a worsted weight yarn.