My small swatch of hand-spun merino/alpaca dyed yarn experienced a small amount of shrinkage after I rinsed it and let it dry.
The good news is that there was no visible bleed when I blocked the swatch. I was concerned that the beautiful dark red would bleed.
I spun up nearly a whole bag of alpaca/merino roving, filled up six small bobbins of singles, and two large bobbins of three ply yarn. The roving that remained was not enough to fill three more small bobbins, so I weighed it and divided by three.
Dividing the roving worked well, but I still had one bobbin run out of single spun before the other two when I was plying. To use up all the singles, I chain plied the last bits. Since chain plying creates a slightly different yarn than plying from three bobbins (there are U bends in the yarn, but it is still three ply), I knit up my swatch with this last bit of yarn. So I didn’t loose track of which part was chain plied, I knit straight off the spinning wheel. The yarn was nicely balanced, so this wasn’t difficult.
My spinning and plying created a “bulky” yarn, about 8 wraps per inch (wpi), so I knit with size 11 needles by Prym.
I’ve wanted to try finger weaving since I heard about it on a Sprang group (it was misidentified as Sprang). In Sprang, there are no weft threads, the vertical warp threads are overlapped consecutively. In finger weaving the warp threads become the weft threads, similar to braiding, but with more threads. I watched video after video before I found this video showing the weaving going out from the center, which made sense to me, and seemed balanced.
I wasn’t sure how to end the weaving, I’ve seen some bands just knotted at the end, but I want to put it in my fiber book, so the finish needed to be relatively flat. I opted to run two rows of double half hitch knots along the angles of the weave, which I think came out complimentary.
This was an interesting exercise, and finger weaving is a nice addition to my craft repertoire. It is nice that it can be done by anchoring one end, rather than needing a loom, and it comes out thinner and more flexible than macrame. It is more interesting with multiple colors.
The new-to-me Ashford Traveller spinning wheel came with a jumbo flyer that hadn’t been assembled. I finished all the wood parts with Howard’s Feed-n-Wax. (See? I love this stuff.) Ashford wood products typically come unfinished.
After a few applications and some drying time, I finished the assembly by screwing in hooks and tried it out on the spinning wheel to ply my three singles. It occurred to me that three full bobbins will not all fit on a single bobbin of the same size, but a jumbo bobbin could hold it all. The flyer came with a new end bracket to fit the larger end of the flyer, but it also came with grommets to fit the original flyer so I don’t have to change the bracket to switch back and forth. Nice.
The jumbo flyer is marketed as an aid to make bulky art yarn, but I think it does a lovely job of plying as well.
I’m developing my skills with the Ashford Traveller spinning wheel. I’ve found it helps me evenly distribute the yarn on the bobbin if I separate up my roving into thinner strips and switch hooks on the flyer after I spin each strip.
Some spinners pre-draft their roving to make spinning easier, I find tearing off about 8-10 inches, then separating out sections has a similar function. Commercial roving is quite thick, and when spinning directly from a large bundle of fiber there is a tendency for the fibers to tangle, making it harder to spin consistently. Joining in a new strip is easier for me than untangling a mess of looped fibers, or managing a thick bundle.
I now have three full bobbins of yarn and am ready to try plying with the wheel!
Critters and Craft 