I transferred all my three-ply hand spun Jacob’s sheep yarn to my PVC niddy noddy.
I like the PVC niddy noddy because I can rinse the hanks while still on the niddy noddy. I usually let them dry there too, but I put too much yarn on and the noddy niddy came apart when I twisted it to dry, so I had to hang the hanks instead.
I am pleased that the yarn is well balanced. There are no kinks or twists, it is all laying nice and straight.
All the singles I spun with my Jacob’s wool from Sweetgrass farms had sat on their bobbins for a few days, so it was time to ply! I put a makeshift brake on the bobbins on their stands on the wheel. I used a cotton string and applied enough tension so that the bobbins will turn, but not spin freely. This saves me from future tangles.
I used the silver single spun with the remaining two bobbins of dark colored singles, then when the dark ran out, chain plied the silver. I ended up with two jumbo bobbins full of three-ply yarn, and two regular bobbins half-full of yarn.
I need my bobbins free, so this yarn doesn’t get to let time set the twist. Next up is the niddy noddy.
I finished spinning singles from my two colors of Jacob’s wool roving.
I had extra of the silver colored roving, so I spun that up by itself.
Now to ply.
My parents-in-law recently took a trip to South America and brought me back three hanks of beautifully spun and dyed alpaca yarn. I immediately set to opening up the hank to put on my yarn swift and use my ball winder to make a center pull ball, which is easier to use for knitting and crochet. I was met with resistance.
The hanks looked like what I was familiar with buying in the States, a large circle of wrapped yarn, twisted and tucked end in end for storage, but when I opened up the skein I did not find a continuous circle and it dawned on me that the wrap was different. I employed the arm power of my eldest to investigate.
The hanks were not wrapped in a loop, but instead used a figure 8 style wrap. Easy enough to handle with an extra pair of arms, but definitely not compatible with my yarn swift. My eldest obliged me by holding the yarn while I wound onto a wool winder.
Once I figured out how the hanks were wrapped, I was impressed with the way the figure 8 kept the strands in decent order. I am a firm believer that there are many ways, and I love finding out about other methods.
My mother-in-law also brought me a spindle; the spin on it is beautiful and it also is slightly different than what I’ve seen.
P.S. Sometimes I get my terminology swapped. The original post used the word “skein” in place of “hank”. I think I have fixed all instances.
I spun two spindles of Black Welsh Mountain fiber then moved on to other fibers, because with a 40 gram bag, that is about all I get. I actually had 4 ounces, and had tucked the bag up on a shelf and forgot. Finding it again (a black shadow at the top of a shelf) was better than finding money in the wash! So I wound the singles off of one spindle and into a center pull ball.
I had actually spun about 2 ounces (about 50 grams, so my estimate wasn’t far off), and since I had 2 ounces remaining I decided to spin some singles the opposite way. This challenges my brain and hands, but doesn’t result in the smoothest yarn, yet. The idea is that I can do some experiments with the opposite twists.
Critters and Craft 