I did my go-to coaster crochet pattern for the Tencel swatch using a F hook. The crochet handles the unevenness of the yarn much better than knitting.
The openness of the lace stitch also is complementary to the uneven yarn. I think if I had done an even crochet stitch, such as a single crochet every row, it wouldn’t have looked as nice. That is a good thing to know: lace or sculptural crochet is a good choice for imperfect yarn.
I knit my hand spun Tencel yarn with size 4 Prym needles. I like to do a stockinette stitch with garter stitch border to help it lay flat since stockinette alone likes to curl.
My knitting tension is even, the wonkiness of this swatch comes from the uneven spin of the yarn. Tencel was a tricky fiber for me to spin. It is shiny and lustrous, but likes to clump and doesn’t draft evenly. The finished swatch is soft and has a lovely sheen, but I’m distracted by the strange pooling of uneven yarn.
My chain plied Tencel yarn sat on my niddy noddy for (ah hm) awhile. I am deliberately not counting the number of in progress projects I have right now. I finally rolled it up into a center pull ball, and it is very shiny, but more uneven than my usual spins. I think I have said it before, but Tencel will not be on my spin-again list.
I finished the first spin of the mint top fiber from my plant fiber sample pack my sister gave me almost two years ago. I am down to three packs from the original set. I’ve spun the rest and made up fiber pages for all of them. I may need another book to hold all the pages!
The mint top is “cellulose fiber infused with mint”, which is supposed to make the fabric feel cooler. I didn’t notice any cool feeling when I was spinning it, and it doesn’t smell like mint. It is a pleasure to spin though, and spins fine easily.
My plan is to three ply the single to give it some weight. I’m contemplating whether to chain ply or divide the fiber onto three bobbins. If I chain ply I don’t have to remove it from the spindle, or can transfer it to a single bobbin if I’m worried about the spindle jumping around. If I divide, I’ll have some single left over and I’ll have to transfer it to three bobbins. The risk of breaking lies in transferring to different bobbins and potentially losing some twist and weakening the single, or applying too much stress when making loops for chain plying. I think I’ll think on it some more.
I finished spinning Egyptian cotton single spun yarn onto three bobbins on an Ashford Traveller spinning wheel (Yes! I spun cotton on a wheel using a high speed whorl.) I found the largest diameter on the high speed whorl, the one that matches the bobbin end diameter, worked best for me. The smaller diameter gears went too fast and I over spun. I also had the wheel set up with Scottish tension with a very light take up on the bobbin. I prefer to dictate the amount of spin in my yarn rather than have it controlled by the wheel.
The next task was to ply the cotton. I was nervous about this because the singles had a high degree of twist, and liked to kink up. If a strand broke I would also be dealing with the rapid unwinding of the single, which results in a whole sale unbinding of a large section of yarn (ask me how I know). I did let the singles sit on the bobbin for a few days to set the twist a little. Remarkably, I was able to ply the yarn from the three bobbins with no breakage and only a few missed kinked knots.
My spinning definitely looks like homespun, but as I practiced, my technique improved and there were some sections of smooth and even spun yarn.
Critters and Craft 