Black coffee skein completed

While I was thinking about what to show you today, I realised I hadn't shown you the finished skein spun from the Black Coffee roving.  It took me pretty much right up to christmas but I managed to get the singles spun, plied and posted just in time for my mum's birthday. What was especially nice was the post arrived while I was on the phone to her so I got to hear all the 'oohs and aahs' when she opened the parcel:-)

Want to see?.... ok:-)

The sad thing was the light was so poor for photos between finishing and posting that although I took loads of pictures, very few came close to the true colour of the spun fleece. But you can get a good idea of how the two singles plied together. I was thinking there would be more of a colour contrast with greens and plums in the mix but overall it's quite subtle and harmonious.

This is my first proper plied yarn and although the singles were a little thick and thin in places this did even out through the plying to give quite a nice fingering weight/4ply yarn. But I did learn an awful lot about tension, under and overspinning and getting the right amount of twist in the plying stage so it's been really helpful - and addictive:-) Yup, I'm itching to start playing some more!

I still have a little of this bobbin left as I managed to spin one half of the roving a lot longer than the other although they weighted exactly the same:-) but I think I just seem to make thinner yarn the longer I spin! If I can just get consistant! Spinners out there, is there a knack to this or is it as I suspect,  just practice?!

So I'll have to ply this up so I can free the bobbins for the next lot of roving. I'm thinking of mixing two different dyed rovings together either during the singles spinning stage or as two different coloured singels to ply together. Now, if I can just get the never ending DIY out the way for a little while.....:-)

Black coffee

Not the kind you drink but the kind you spin! Yes, some more spinning is going on - at last! I managed to pull myself away from the knitting to indulge in a bit of spinning. Motivation? Some spun roving as a christmas present - for a certain someone who loves colour and free hand spun yarn:-) But as they are unlikely to read my blog then it's safe to post my progress for you to see.

The roving may be familiar to some of you from a fibre purchase I made earlier this year - february to be exact! I couldn't believe that when I checked my earlier post on this but, yup, that long ago. The colour is 'Black coffee' and the fibre is by Fibreoptic - also where I got the lovely pinky/purple roving 'jelly jelly' that I spun up recently and now use for my blog banner. That skein has been gifted but I still have half of the roving left to be spun.

I learned a lot from that spinning session - like I split the roving too thin and my single was way too thin in places and not even enough thoughout. So,  more spinning practice is needed:-) This time I've not made the slivers quite so thin so I can practice whether I want to draw some fleece out as I go to get a more even yarn.

I know I should probably start with thicker yarns but I just seem to gravitate to thinner threads. Well, as long as its even, I can ply to get a heavier yarn - for now. The perfectionist in me will insist on mastering this yarn thickness issue sometime soon in the future, but for now, I'll settle for a smooth, even yarn. I've read up so much about tension, ratios and the right bobbins for my wheel that I'll be dreaming of it!! Now to the spinning where I hope some of that research has paid off!

This is the roving single using half of the fleece. I think it is a bit more even than before and seemed to spin up quicker this time but still a thin thread:-) I do like the colours and how they merge together. The light has been so poor that each photo made the yarn look a different colour palette! So I've include a couple of images to give you a better idea overall.

I've also been thinking a lot about how to use the roving - particularly how to get the best from the colours.  If I split the roving into lots of little slivers, it won't draw out much longer than the staple length so the colour sections will spin up pretty much to the length shown on the sliver. If I don't make slivers at all and spin straight from the full roving, I will be able to tease a lot of fibre from each section of colour before moving on to the next section. This will produce a completely different yarn with much longer colour gradations.

As I want to learn as well as produce lovely yarns:-), I've decided to try out both techniques. I had already slivered my first 4oz of roving (yes, I got two as it was so scrummy!) and had started spinning before this idea about colour occurred to me so I have to make a decision about how to proceed. I could start the second roving and ply the first sliver single with a full roving colourway single to get a play of short and long colourways meeting when they are plied together - nice - or I could have one skein of two short colourways together and one skein of two long colourways together to show the more obvious colour contrasts in technique.

Maybe I'll do a little more reading before making the final decision but I can't take too long as christmas won't wait for me!

Jelly Jelly

I've been spending a lot of time these last few days with fibres - specifially my new fibre from Fibreoptics called Jelly Jelly. When I saw this, it just cried out to be mine:-) The colours are just so rich and deep - and very fuchsia pink:-) I always have a hard time choosing just one roving in her etsy shop and of course, just after I found this one and bought it, I spied another scrumptious one! I have to stay away unless I am serious about buying fibres!!!

Being a strong pink, I had a hard time trying to capture the true colour. The top pic is the closest as the sun has lightened my pic of the roving coiled. This came as a thinner sliver of roving. I didn't realise when I bought it but that doesn't matter too much to me. The only difference is that being thinner, the same weight of fibre makes the length of roving so much longer!!!! So splitting this into thinner strips has been much more time consuming than normal. The strips just go on and on.......

In theory I wanted to split this 16 times. Once quartered, each quartered ball should be split into four for the thickness I want. In theory. In fact, the first two balls went a bit pear shaped and split into one thin and one thick so I could only get three instead of four splits altogether. But, the last two were fine. I like to think this means I'm getting the knack!! If you count the balls, there are more than 16 - I know. I don't quite know how I managed that either:-) I think I tried to split one even thinner and got left with a few half balls but I'll use them first to practice so nothing wasted!

Anyway, a bit at a time, the roving is now split, ready to spin. I have to draft it slightly to ensure each ball is of even thickness - which I already know is NOT the case with some of them! I'm thinking that I should wind them around something before spinning as the balls may not unwind evenly or more probably will grip the fibres and make them snap continually now the slivers are so thin. A few toilet rolls should do the trick:-)) And yes, I am sad enough to have been collecting them for just this emergency!! Tip courtesy of Yarn Harlot:-)

So between dyeing and knitting, some fibre may be spun this week .......

Spinning worsted style - or the short draw method

The last few days I've been learning how to spin using two methods - the short draw and the long draw. Until I read a book on spinning a few months ago, I didn't know there was more than one way, I mean spinning is surely spinning right? Well, it all depends on your fleece and how it is prepared for spinning. Roving uses short draw, and carding tops into rolags uses the long draw method. After watching this video I found out I use the short draw method with rolags!!!! So I decided to set myself the challenge of trying them both out - properly:-)

The top video shows you how to spin using the short draw method. I tried this one first because it works with combed roving and I have some lovely dyed roving but can't use it til I get the hang of this.

Yes, my lovely roving from Fibreoptics and Needleworks pleasure respectively. And now I've been learning how to use it. Okay, not straight away with the good stuff though! I've been experimenting with some undyed merino - still very yummy - and I'll dye it when I've finished. I tried to spin this before with mixed results just before my wheel broke and I never got back to it. I was still feeling my way back into spinning - still am - so I resorted to using the method I knew I could do, working with tops and carding it into rolags.

But after watching this video I realised I had missed out a vital step of preparation - splitting. The whole idea of splitting is to take the roving and split it lengthwise all the way down. Now if you want a super chunky yarn you could spin it now but I definitely don't! So I split each length again - now 4 pieces. Still this is too thick for me, so again I split - 8 pieces, split again, 16 pieces. I stopped here and tried spinning this thickness but if its still too thick, split!

You have to even the thickness along each length you split so it will spin evenly. I found a really good video on You Tube that shows this method of splitting and preparing the fibres -

It has made my life a lot easier now I know what preparation I should be doing before spinning and I learn visually so this is great. And here is my work in progress....

I've done twice this amount now but it only weighs around 22 gms. This single yarn can be fixed as is or can now be plyed - two yarns together. As my first effort isn't as even all the way through and gets very thin in places I think I will ply this together to make it stronger. I don't know what with as yet. Maybe my undyed spun fleece straight from the sheep? But each fleece will take the dye differently so it could be a lovely contrast - or not!!! I could also spin it together with a thin manufactured yarn to eak out the roving as it's not very cheap to buy, or I could spin another bobbin of the roving and spin two equal thicknesses of yarn together. That is my preferred method and I will get a sturdier yarn.

So, still some short draw spinning to do then on to mastering the long draw! I think I'll save some of my dyed fleece for that experiment. 100gms on the nose and I didn't even weigh it! Onwards and upwards!

Roving eye...

Ah, knitting, do not despair! Although I still love to knit there has been a calling in me recently to spin. My spinning wheel is just sitting there saying, 'remember me?' And I slink past feeling guilty that I have spent the money on more sock yarn than buying some lovely fibre. But that is all to end! I finally resisted the yarn urge and went for fibre instead. And what lovely fibres they are. These are the online photos from each etsy shop as I couldn't wait for them to arrive before showing you them. But hopefully they will arrive soon.

This first one is from Fibreoptic's Etsy shop and is called 'Black Coffee' - a colour mixture of expresso, coffee, mocha, and a little caramel. Yum yum. She does roving and yarns in such gorgeous colourways that your hands start itching to spin just looking at them! I just love the subtlety of the colour palette and I'm excited to see how it spins up. Kimber at Fibreoptic was so helpful and friendly in helping me get what I needed. A big thank you!

This next one is from All the pretty fibres Etsy shop. Heike also sells her yarns and rovings on Ebay and her website needleworks pleasure, from whom I bought some lovely hand dyed yarn a while back. She has been ever so helpful in giving me advice about how much roving to buy etc. I haven't really spun seriously for a long time - read over ten years. It is maybe a tad more than that, but I'm trying not to think about where the time goes and how it's gone 'whoosh' all of a sudden.

I tend to have little bursts of carding and spinning and then drift away. But this time it is serious! I'll have to get some practicing in before touching the nice stuff but after that there are socks to be knitted with my own spun yarn! (well, that is if I can get an even enough yarn...it's been a while)

So knitting, you are not being abandoned. Just think of it as a means to getting some lovely yarn to knit with. Knitting and spinning working in harmony:-) Of course, you realise this could start me experimenting with dyeing roving.....