It’s been a rather disorganized week with a lot of bits and pieces of different things, not the least of which was a couple of days sitting in a queue with the usual immigration bureaucracy (admittedly one of the most questionably organized public offices I’ve ever had the [mis]fortune to encounter).  But this morning . . . this morning totally made my day.  Check this:

Now, I know that photo doesn’t really make sense when you see it like this. So let me enlighten you. It’s a Shetland fleece from a ewe named Chloe under the care of the Moores on Stonehaven Farm in the marvelously-named town of Halfway, Oregon. Seriously, is that not the coolest set of names you’ve heard in a while? They read like a story. (If you’re curious, there’s a link to the farm on the blogroll to the right.)

And before I explain the fleece, I have to tell you that Lois Moore is a lovely, lovely person to work with. When I asked for a fleece which would let me meet Master Spinner requirements (i.e., NOT heavily skirted; we need the belly wool as well), she went rooting through her newly-shorn fleeces until she found one she’d not yet skirted much, bundled it carefully so that I could unpack it in its proper shape, and shipped faster than I could have hoped for. She talked to me about the fleece, asked questions to be sure she was sending me something I could use and would like, and went above and beyond what I could have asked for. Besides, doggone it, she’s just nice!

But the fleece . . . Don’t laugh, but I brought the box in and opened it, looked at it all sitting nestled in clear organization, and then panicked and had to let it sit for a few minutes before I pulled it out for fear I was going to muss it up. When I couldn’t stand it any longer, I pulled it out and unrolled it, and everything fell neatly into place. Can’t you see the shape of the sheep? Need a closer look? Check out this staple:

Isn’t that just lovely crimp?? And the photo doesn’t show it, but it’s actually nicely shiny. This is a mioget fleece, but that unwashed staple doesn’t do the color justice. Try this washed pair:

Yes, I had to wash a lock and blow it dry to see what it would look like. But even that photo doesn’t quite show you the depth of tone. It’s a variegated light moorit (yellow-brown) fleece, and the washed lock shows a lovely warm oatmeal range of color with some dark hairs here and there.

As for the condition of the fleece . . . Oh. My. It feels wonderful, but I’m sooooo impressed with how clean it is compared to what I’ve worked with before. There’s a tiny—and I do mean “tiny”—bit of VM here and there, but it’s all stuff which will be a snap to remove. There are a couple of packy bits here and there where you’d expect to find them on an uncovered sheep, but even those will wash up nicely. There are nearly NO second cuts here, the fleece is actually fairly open, and I simply cannot wait to see how it spins up. It’s a slightly larger fleece than I expected, and weighs in at about 4 pounds. Once the Master Spinner requirements are met, I’ll have enough for a nice-sized project just for me.

Tomorrow is the spinning group meeting from noon until 4, but then guess what I’m doing? (Hint: I picked up some nesting buckets this morning as well.)

I expect the spinning group to be smaller than usual tomorrow since one is ill, two are working, and two others have family and other conflicts, but we’ll have fun anyway. There’s one more scheduled meeting at the end of the month and then they’ll have a break from regular meetings until September in order to accommodate summer travel schedules.

But in the meantime, I’m spinning funky yarns to use as demo yarns for a group of teenagers in a few weeks. I’m willing to bet that they’ll think a smooth vanilla yarn is downright boring—particularly if it doesn’t look much different from what they could buy in any LYS—but a novelty yarn or two might catch their interest. So there’s this:

Is that just not the funniest stuff you’ve seen in a while? It’s 4 ounces of Merino, hand-dyed by Spunky Eclectic in the fiber-of-the-month flavor, “Mud Season.” There are 40 yards here, using the wrap-and-roll method in the current edition of Spin-Off that you’ll find on the front cover. This yarn is a bit more “bubbly” than I’d like, and I found that if you’re going to use that method, then you need to keep three things in mind.

First, your single needs to be pretty consistent both in the thin spots and in the thick spots. In other words, the thin spots should all be about the same thinness, and the thick spots all about the same thickness.

Second, because you’re pushing the plied single up on your core yarn, you’re using a lot of single yardage in a very short space, so you want your thick spots to be fairly far apart. If they’re too close, they’ll all run together and you lose the bubble.

Third, you don’t really need a major distinction between the thin spot of your single and the thick spot. There should be an obvious difference, but if the thick spot is 2 inches long, you don’t need the difference to be dramatic. The thick spot is wound nearly on top of itself during the ply, so all thickness builds exponentially. Too big and you get a Bazooka-sized bubble (like some of these) rather than a simple kernel. And, obviously, the longer the thick spot, then the bigger or longer your bubble, depending on how you “build” it in the ply.

This type of spinning uses a LOT of fiber for a fairly short yardage, but that’s a given. How soft the yarn is will ultimately depend on how firm your single is (keep it soft), and how snugly you ply the single onto your core yarn. I don’t mean how firmly you push it up, but rather how tightly you guide the single onto the core. If you give it a wee bit of room to play, it will be a bit softer and fluffier. Ply it at a straight 90-degree angle with a guiding finger under the join and it will be firmer and a bit stiffer.

It seems to me that the key to the yarn here is that—aside from those other issues—you don’t let it overply; make a point of getting rid of the extra twist. One note to that point . . . In addition to setting your spindle to spinning clockwise (assuming your wheel is plying counterclockwise), if you look at the video on the magazine’s website, you’ll see that she’s actively untwisting the core yarn with her subordinate hand while she’s plying. Even if you shift your wheel to a slower speed, you’re going to build up extra twist. “Helping” your spindle spin by pushing the twist down toward it does, er, help. But you still may have to stop at intervals and release extra twist to keep from overplying.  There’s a balance between how quickly your wheel is plying in one direction and how quickly your spindle is removing twist in the other direction.  If the wheel is moving faster than the spindle, you’re going to need to release twist at some point, even if you just hang the yarn from a hook and let it dangle. 

Finally, do as designer Sarah Anderson suggests and slightly full the yarn in the finishing process. It makes a difference, and the yarn does soften as it’s handled.

But doesn’t it make you think of that bubbly seaweed?  Bladderwrack?