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Showing posts with label skein. Show all posts
Showing posts with label skein. Show all posts

Saturday, March 04, 2023

Targhee, a New Favorite

I initially had a bit of a fight with my new Nano2 electric spinner, but after sorting out a problem with the developing single not wanting to wind on, all went well and I had three little bobbins of lovely Targhee breed wool singles as a reward for my perseverance.


I then plied the 3 together to get this luscious 3ply 100g hank of squishy, bouncy goodness.


 

I think Targhee may be my new favorite to spin. It is soft to the touch and easy to spin. What more could a spinner want? Well --- MORE Targhee, that's what I want! Several sweaters worth would be nice.

Targhee is an American breed of sheep developed by crossing Lincolns and Rambouillets. I hope it soon becomes a more popular, and therefor more readily available wool, in Canada.


Monday, September 16, 2019

Back With the Yak

The yak I mentioned spinning on my charkha the other day is now a tiny 3 ply skein.
I should have thought to include some sort of size reference in the photo. In the photo the yarn looks like it is thick, but that's just a matter of perspective. The skein itself is very small. Only 0.72 of an ounce, and still 32 yards of 3 ply. It's very soft and squishy but I won't be looking to spin more yak in the future. It's not that it was terribly difficult, it just didn’t want to draft as easily as the cotton and turned out rather uneven with tufty bits as well. I'll happily return to the cotton.

Thursday, August 15, 2019

Dreamy Cotton

I'm so pleased with the little skein of 2 ply natural brown cotton!

It spun up beautifully! I have a whole pound of it to work with and it's so delightfully soft and squishy that I think I'll spin it into a 3 ply for knitting. But for now -- back to the white cotton I was working on.

Thursday, July 18, 2019

First Cotton Skein

My first skein of handspun cotton. I'm so pleased with the way it turned out.


I filled 3 spindles on the charkha (about .25 oz each), placed them on a charkha spindle lazy kate that my husband is making for me (not quite finished but I got to take it for a test drive), and then plyed them together using my Majacraft LittleGem wheel. 

The resulting skein weighs 20gr (.705 oz) and is approximately 80 yards long. I forgot to measure WPI before skeining it, but it looks to be about a fingering weight. So soft and cuddly! I love it.

Thursday, January 12, 2017

The Path for Palindrone

A palindrone, hand dyed skein can make for an interesting warp with a faux Ikat effect. I think most often they are done on rigid heddle looms. The reason being that with direct warping it is a relatively simple matter of adjusting the distance to the peg to get the warp colours to line up and "pool". I do have a rigid heddle loom -- two in fact -- but I so much prefer using my Saori loom that I wanted to wind a warp for that instead.

It's a little trickier to find a warping board path that will be a perfect multiple of the original skein length, thereby getting the pooling just so. Here is my first attempt. I decided the "Carnival" colourway would be a sacrifice to the initial attempt.

Arranging warp path to maximize pooling of colour sections in hand painted skein of Socks That rock.

It's pooling, and rather effectively I think, but not quite in the way is usually intended, which is with the colours more or less in softly blending stripes across the warp rather than sharply contrasting ones along the warp's length as this one is doing. I'm not certain but I think it's because my warp path is ever so slightly longer than the actual skein's length, doubled.

Here's a photo of the exact path the warp takes on my Saori warping board. It's ever so slightly longer than 4m. The skein was 2m.

4m path for a 2m hand painted skein on a Saori warping board.

For this type of pooling to work on a warping board you have to have a circular path, rather than one that goes down and then back up as a warp is normally wound. Syne Mitchell of weavezine.com has an article that explains how to wind a palindrome skein on a warping board, for effective faux ikat.

If you are interested in trying this, Nancy, Ravelry user name "MeasuredThreads", has a great explanation of how to evaluate a palindrome skein to create a faux Ikat scarf in her post on a rigid heddle loom forum on Ravelry.

I experimented with a few different colours and weights of weft threads and have decided to weave this one with sewing thread as weft so that the warp colours are all that is really noticed once the scarf is wet finished.



Wednesday, March 02, 2016

Spinning Revisited

Okay, so it's not much, but at least it's something. It's been a long while since I've done any spinning. I think the last time was at a spin-in back in October of last year.


This is a 50g skein of 50/50 camel/silk spun at a lace-weight. It has a lovely sheen not fully captured in the photo and is very soft. Not sure what to use it for though. It might be enough for a  small scarf.

Friday, February 15, 2008

Another Skein

Another fat skein plyed up. This one is 6 3/4 ounces/92 grams, 316 yards/289 metres of 2 ply pink superwash merino. I spun it from mill ends that I processed on my new drum carder.

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I'm beginning to suspect that I am very inaccurate when I measure WPI. Using a WPI tool I estimated this to be between 15 and 17 WPI (it varies a little in thickness), which would make it a fingering weight. However according to my calculations using Spinderella's formula of weight multipled by yardage I get something more in the line of worsted to perhaps even bulky!
I've been knitting a good many years (over 30) and just eye-balling it, I'd say it is somewhere in the neighbourhood of sport to light worsted weight. I guess the true test would be knitting up a swatch......but I don't have time for that right now.

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Oh a little additional tidbit of information; This skein was from 8 batts so the batts I made must have weighed less than an ounce each, about 11.5 grams a piece. I wonder if I'm supposed to be making them fatter? To me it seemed that the carder was "full" at that point. If you have an opinion on the matter, please comment. Keep in mind that this is a "fur drum" I'm using and the teeth are shorter and finer than standard drum carders.

If you missed the post about my lovely Christmas present, it's a Patrick Green drum carder, the "Deb's Delicate Deluxe".

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Spindle's First Skein

I was under the impression that I wouldn't be able to get a skein of decent length while spinning on a spindle. I thought I would have to splice my spindling efforts together or have numerous ends in my knitting. My new spindle has proven me wrong.

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This first skein, a 2 ply made from 2 full cops, weighs a full 50 grams. At 17 - 18 WPI it would be considered light fingering or a laceweight. It's lovely and soft with a pretty sheen. I'll definitely be looking for Bluefaced Leicester again in the future.

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