A couple of groups in Ravelry I am in are doing Knit Your Shit threads. Since my fibre stash has grown alarmingly during past couple years, I am doing Spin Your Shit variant along with the main Knit Your Shit event. My fibre stash does not fit the 4 boxes designated to it, in fact, I've filled a 5th and should start a 6th box, but I'm not.
Partly out of stubbornness, partly because I do not have space in storage for another box, and partly because I am determined to Spin My Shit in 2016. To kick that event off, I have finished two fibre entries in my stash — one old and one new.
The new one was three rolags included with fibre I bought last year. The gradients are something I've long wanted to spin and knit, but before plunging into spinning rolags for bigger projects, I wanted to get some practice.
It feels like I'm losing the skills I had. Each spin with the Hansen miniSpinner is worse than the previous one. Lumpy, uneven, ugh. It's not the fault of the machine, of course. Or the prep. I just have to practice long draw more and really try to not let it become so thin all the time. Adding to that the amplification of unevenness inherent to chain plying, and you get yarn I am not at all happy with.
From this I have learned: plan your gradients so that you do not need to chain ply, and practice more with rolags.
I finished the rest of the Jacob fibre in Harlequin colourway.
The 3-ply is on the larger bobbin and leftovers are the 2-ply on the smaller bobbin.
Here are all three skeins. I am much happier with these than with the rolag attempt. The singles spun on the spindle are somewhat fluffier than the singles spun with true worsted draw on the miniSpinner, but I am happy with both. The 3-ply is fingering weight and the 2-ply is lace.
I did enjoy spinning the fibre, but it was so coarse that in the end it rubbed my finger raw while plying. This yarn is not suitable for anything next to skin. I have no idea what to make because these are not the colours I am willing to wear, and I don't see anyone else wearing the scratchiness.
As you can see, there were a lot of leftovers. A lesson from this project is: do not split a normal braid into 6 strips lengthways, it comes out too uneven.
I finished off this light green thread with my glass bead spindle. The tiny turkish was so frustratingly slow spinning that fine.
Then I tried again and made the thread thicker. It took some concentration and ignoring the feel of the spindle, but this spin was more enjoyable than the first (even though it is more uneven than I'd like).
So enjoyable that I jumped immediately into the third attempt at embroidery thread with the turkish spindle. Spinning that dark green took some effort (why do colours I am using have such an effect on me?), but plying from the turtle the turkish spindle makes is a pure delight. I now see why people rave about these spindles.
What I learned from these three is that I am so used to letting the spindle determine the diameter of the thread I am spinning that I must practice a lot more with the miniSpinner. It is the spinner who should be in charge of the yarn, not the tool.
Next up is another unfinished project. This braid I had divided into three horizontally, so the individual singles should not come out such different lengths as they did with Harlequin. I have to finish the first single on the spindle, the other two will be spun on the miniSpinner, then the whole lot plied on the miniSpinner.
That is the plan, at least.