The story: I tried spinning with a spindle last year and did not like the lumpy, thick yarn I produced. I was impatient with the lack of speed, yadda, yadda. The yarn sat on the spindle until yesterday.
Using a Babe Fiber Starter Wheel I got second-hand last month, I unspun the yarn as best I could. Then I did some pre-drafting and joining, and spun it up into a better, somewhat finer single. Then I wound it into a center-pull ball and plied it. Per my best guess (22 wraps on a 14 inch niddy noddy), there's about 34 yards of unbalanced (it could be much worse!) yarn. Here it is just before its bath:
My plan is to knit myself a hat. 34 yards won't be enough, but I have some cream worsted, or maybe the stash will cough up a ball in a coordinating green.
After this exercise in treadling, chair selection, skid prevention, etc. I'll spin some actual roving. I can't decide between the Cotswold gray roving or the rest of the green merino. Opinions? Oh, and there's some alpaca roving and some wool/alpaca/dog roving.
"Alpaca?" you ask. "Dog?" A few weeks ago I bought a mixed bag of fiber from a craigslist ad:
- 2 very big pet slicker brushes possibly usable as carders
- 2 raw Shetland fleeces (one is lamb!), about 2 pounds each
- 24 ounces dyed yellow mohair locks
- 2 one-ounce bags of Noil dyed silk
- 5 ounces cream alpaca roving
- 8 ounces gray alpaca roving
- 2 ounces "real wool" (that's what the label says!) roving
- 4 ounces wool/alpaca/dog roving
This is the wool/alpaca/dog roving:
Do you think $20 was too much?
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