After plying my hand dyed chain ply yarn, I transferred it to my PVC niddy noddy and soaked it with water to set the twist.
When the yarn was dry, I wound it into a cake using a swift and a ball winder.
I have picked a crochet pattern that I think will do nicely with this yarn, but it is fifth in my queue, so I better get to making!
Some spinners set the twist in their singles before plying. I usually can’t wait, and the hand dyed single I spun on the Befra Willy Spinning wheel was no exception. I couldn’t even wait a day. As soon as the last of the roving twisted into yarn, I had the bobbin off, mounted on the bobbin holder, and was plying the newly spun yarn. I chose to chain ply to keep the color change consistent with the spun singles. Chain plying results in a three ply yarn. If you have made a chain in crochet, or shortened a long rope after tying off a horse, it is a similar concept, but with bigger loops. It took me 2 hours to ply the same amount of yarn it took me four days to spin, and I did it all in one go. (Can you say obsessed?)
The shocker? The flyer assembly worked. The flyer was moving slightly slower than the bobbin, so it was adding twist as the yarn was wound onto the shaft of the bobbin. Wha? I think it was that the new bobbin fit loosely on the flyer shaft, where the bobbin I used to spin had a tight fit. Hm. Learning.
My spinning speed on the wheel is about the same as on a drop spindle right now, but I am obsessed and can sit and treadle longer than I can stand and spin. The gentle swoosh of the wheel spinning is also soothing. Until I get a squeak. It doesn’t bother me (shockingly), but does set other people’s teeth on edge. I ask my eagle eared eldest to listen for the source of the squeak, then I apply a little oil. Off I go again. I even am making myself switch sides to balance the stresses on my body. I find it harder to treadle with my left foot and draft out to my right, but it is getting better!
I separated my hand dyed roving by Supernova Dye Works into segments and sorted by color. I love gradient yarns and wanted to separate the teal from the olive green. At the end of each day I took a picture of the yarn on the bobbin.
One of the bobbins that came with my vintage wheel (there were 3, which is the original number!) needed fixing. The ends had come unglued from the shaft. There was still yarn wrapped around the shaft, but it was very old and deteriorating. So the first step was to get the yarn off.
I started winding it off, but it came off in pieces, so my Dad helped and cut off the remaining yarn. I then had the three pieces separated.
I sanded down the old glue and roughed up the surfaces to be glued, and used a wood glue to reattach the ends to the shaft. The next day I had my third spindle back and ready to roll!
I sat down at my vintage spinning wheel to attempt to produce yarn. I had some lovely dyed roving that my youngest picked out at a weaving store to use. Getting started was a little tricky. Moving the treadle to drive the wheel in the right direction took some practice, then the flyer assembly kept popping out of place. Hm. It seems the support arm for the flyer assembly has sagged over time, making the space about a quarter inch too long. My Dad made me a quarter inch thick wooden washer to put on the flyer side. It worked perfectly!
The way the flyer assembly works is the flyer and the bobbin both spin. The flyer adds twist, and the bobbin winds on the yarn. But they should spin at different speeds. The ratio between the rate the flyer and the bobbin spin gives you how much twist is in the yarn. If everything is working right. I could not get the flyer to slow without stopping, so I went with it. I let the flyer and bobbin spin together to give me twist, then when I was ready, I stopped the flyer and wound the yarn onto the bobbin. It worked to give me yarn! And I had control of how much twist went into my yarn before I wound it up.
I’m still working on my consistency, but I’ve made yarn on a vintage wheel! Huzzah!
