The Day 8 Spunky yarn is finally dry.
There are a bit less than 8 ounces in 328 yards. Because it went from spindle to wheel during a period of time when I was spinning other weights, I rather lost track of what I was spinning—which means that the WPI varies a bit. It’s a soft, squishy worsted weight (9-12wpi) at fairly low twist and with roughly 5-8 TPI. It’s actually rather cushy stuff. 
Sorry, folks; I’m afraid I was a bit brain dead when I posted last night. The new Valkyrie larger sized combs hold more than the minis, but not a full ounce. I managed 8-10 grams of Bond bird’s nest per combing, but in the last 4 ounces of the fleece, transferred the comb’s contents to a hackle in order to make a larger nest. Like this:
That’s the last two ounces, and it was about 4 (5?) combs’ worth. Then I just dizzed from the hackle. Easy peasy.
Today is a day of rest for the Tour de France and the Tour de Fleece. Want a report?
Three combed bird’s nests of Bond and half a bobbin of singles from the “Mad Hatter” batts from Enchanted Knoll Farm and which I’d cannibalized for the corset yarn in the last post.
The rest of that bobbin; no photos.
An entire bobbin of the same singles. That finishes the fiber.
Both bobbins plied.
Spinning a very lofty yarn does at least two things: It creates a wonderfully squishy yarn, and it makes you improvise. Because really, the bobbin isn’t intended to hold this much. When the bobbin is so full that it can’t turn, but you’re determined that if you just keep working at it, you’ll get those last few yards squeezed on there somehow, there’s only one solution: spin to add the necessary twist, then stop, and then manually turn the bobbin in order to wind the yarn onto the bobbin. Repeat. Endlessly. Or rather, seemingly endlessly. You do eventually reach the end, but not before you’ve questioned whether that determination is not really just a bit of plain, old-fashioned obstinacy. And of course, the answer to that question is inevitably that of course it is. Obstinacy. Stubbornness. Because, after all, yarn is a giving thing with very few rules, and of course you can squeeze an extra couple of yards onto the bobbin. Of course. Right?
Right. Only, then you find you can’t wind it off because, hello, you’ve filled the bobbin so full that it won’t budge. However, it’s amazing what you can do with a screwdriver, and it’s amazing how well a bobbin on a screwdriver can spin when you wedge the handle between a couple of sofa cushions.
There are roughly 167 yards at a bulky 8-11 wpi. The sari silk and angelina really wanted the yarn to have texture, so I let it. It turned out slubby, soft, and very squishy.
A batch of combed Bond bird’s nests.
A bobbin of singles from the Spunky Eclectic “Oo-La-La-Tropi-Cal” colorway in superwash BFL.
The last of the Bond, combed. The big ball in the back is 2 ounces, the two in the front are an ounce each. And that makes 600 grams of combed Bond:
. . . ready to spin:
Finished the Spunky fiber, and plied.
This is the pre-wash shot, so ignore the curly bits and lack of fluff. The yarn is hanging to dry as we speak, and I’ll post a better shot after it finishes.
Exactly 4 ounces of Bond singles at about 40wpi. This yarn is destined to be a 3-ply, so there are 2 more to go.
The Bond is Thomas from Kate Lowder’s farm, and is a lovely fleece. The color is rich, and the sunbleached tips add warmth. It’s this fleece:
I’ve decided Bond is in my top fibers; it’s soft, bouncy, and resilient, and I simply love a soft fiber with good crimp. And, combing the fleece gave me the chance to really test the larger Valkyrie combs from this post. I also gave the combs a test on a bit of Romney, Cormo, Wensleydale, and CVM. Each of the Bond nests weigh between 8-10 grams, but Cormo nearly explodes on the combs, so I was only able to clear 6 grams from a full comb. The combs handled the fine wools as well as I’d hoped they would. They’re very sharp, have a good balance, fit my hand, and the fine tines and fine spacing handle the fine wool nicely. I would recommend using the pad to anchor the comb; it’s a simple affair but is nicely effective and adds no extra height to the stationary comb.
Similarly, the combs had no trouble with the Romney. However, they struggled a bit with the Wensleydale unless I flicked or teased open the locks. That wool is very strong, and I think the heavy curl is simply a bit too much for the fine tines; however, Chris’s heavier grade combs should have absolutely no trouble handling the curly longwools and coarser fibers.
On another note, I do know he’s working on making a full-sized set of combs in different weights or gauges, and I’m looking forward to seeing what he comes up with.
In NON-Tour news, there’s been a bit more fiber prOn. Meet Rifle, a CVM (California Variegated Mutant) ram with a lovely fleece:
CVM is a very spongy wool. It’s soft, with loads of crimp and an incredible degree of elasticity.
I’ve combed a nest to see how it behaved, and I can understand why a lot of folks instinctively lean toward lace with CVM. But I find I’m curious about a blend between CVM, Merino, and silk . . .
Morro Fleece Works washed the fleece, so there are now 4.5 pounds of fleece ready to be prepped and spun. And yes, they did a lovely job and I would cheerfully use them again. The fleece is soft, squeaky clean, and not scrambled.
And Humble Hills has some simply luscious Merino. There are a couple of pounds of silvery-taupe or champagne colored lamb . . .
and four of a beautiful adult moorit . . .
These, however, are not washed. Can you guess what I’ll be doing in my free minutes over the next couple of weeks?
Grades are in, students are gone, and I have one deadline left to meet (belatedly, I’m afraid) for the print-ready version of the compendium text for a fall literature course. That’s my task for today, and I’m reckoning I can have it done and delivered tomorrow afternoon.
Yesterday was the spinning group meeting, and I cannot say how much I enjoy the group. It’s rare that one finds a collection of—as Marit said yesterday—very different personalities, but who all genuinely thrive in each other’s company. I can’t host the full group since our place is a bit small and having even the vacation-slimmed group here means removing furniture from a room in order to have room for five or 6 and wheels—and even then it’s a tight squeeze. So knowing that they can all get along? It’s definitely a plus! We’ll meet privately for August, but then need to go back to a public location for September to allow for walk-ins we don’t know but, in the meantime, it’s nice to have the group in a more cozy environment. And I have to laugh, because I have the same sort of syndrome as someone who works with kindergartners all day and then finally has a chance to talk to adults: they can’t stop! Poor Marit and Ingvild didn’t get out of here until almost 5:30—and we quit at 4!
I’m going to become one of those eccentric old ladies everyone avoids because they can never get free and she only seems to talk about one thing. (Hm. I need to think about the verb tense here. “Going to become” may be a little optimistic.)
For those of you not in the know, Tour de France has a corresponding fiber event where spinners all over the world wash, comb, card, flick, blend, and spin. It’s a way of watching the Tour, cheering for the riders, celebrating the event, and at the same time doing a little stash busting and project spinning, or just spinning in company with others. The spinners rest on the days when the Tour rests, and challenge themselves on the day when the riders have the hardest leg of the tour. There are teams devoted to specific fibers or tasks, a team for clearing out spinning UFOs (unfinished objects), another for new spinners, one for sprinters, and a host of others. For some spinners, the goal may simply be to finish a yarn which has been languishing. For others, it may be to spin the yarn necessary to a particular project. Others may have set themselves a challenge to spin their first yarn of a certain fiber, or their first fleece, and still others may be using the Tour as a way to try and spin up some of their stash. But, regardless of whether the spinner is starting with raw fleece or ready-prepared fiber, if you listen carefully, you’ll hear the quiet swish of fiber being prepared, the global hum of spindles and wheels, and the soft chatter of spinners everywhere as they participate in the ancient craft of making yarn.
For my part, I’m trying to do a little stash busting and finish off a couple of the things which are incomplete. I won’t set myself specific goals beyond that since I do have to work and there are indeed other things I need to accomplish over the next three weeks, but I’ll take it as it comes and see how far I get.
Because yesterday was the spinning meeting, I actually got very little done, contrary to general expectations. So, Day 1′s fiber results? Three combed bird’s nests of Bond fleece (a lovely lovely Bond named Thomas, from Kate Lowder) and half a bobbin of fingering-weight “Mad Hatter” singles from Enchanted Knoll Farm.
It’s a start.
Truthfully, I don’t even know where to start. The past month has been one of catching up and trying to maintain, and things are finally starting to stabilize.
The SNHU class is finished, although the term didn’t go as strongly as I’d have liked as a result of the earlier chaos, and there are some things I do need to revise before that course runs again. Still, I was proud of the troops for hanging in there, for trying, and for doing what is ultimately a drafting and brainstorming process—which is counter intuitive to what they’re accustomed to (creating a finished, polished text). In an eight-week course, and when the purpose is to give them an orientation and hands-on acquaintanceship with a specific form of writing, the best you can do is create drafts and think of the last version as a more polished draft. That’s not easy for them, and I do understand that. But I hope they’ll be encouraged to continue to work with the texts they’ve begun, to see the potential in them and the possibilities to adapt them to different publication markets, or simply try their hand at a new essay and experiment with the skills they’ve picked up. Generally speaking, they did very well, and I was indeed pleased with their work. Creative writing classes really are a joy to work with, even if the term is a chaotic whirlwind.
Likewise, the Norwegian students are finished, and I’m down to marking exams. This coming week has two deadlines I need to meet (including finishing the exams), but here too I’m pleased with the students’ dedication and willingness to try things which are unfamiliar in order to learn a new technique or method, new concepts and ideas about writing and literature. And, here too I see changes I need to make to the courses. There are certain tasks and approaches with which the Norwegians are less familiar than their American counterparts, and as a result, I need to adjust a couple of assignments to keep them from panicking and stressing as much as they are. For the stateside troops, it’s all part of the routine. For the Norwegian troops, however, it’s uncharted territory and I’d rather they went into those tasks with more confidence and a stronger foundation so that they weren’t so intimidated by assignments which should absolutely NOT be intimidating.
So, I have work to do. Fortunately, I have the better part of a year to do that tweaking.
And after this week, I’ll have time to figure out where the heck I am on other projects. I’ve decided to just call this semester a wash; it’s been far from normal on any front, and the past month has been filled with minor surgery for DH and the creeping crud for us both, so I’m thinking of July as a sort of fresh start. There are simply times when you need to do that and, in a manner of speaking, write off the immediate past as out of the ordinary, know that you’ve done the best you could with it, and pick up where you left off before that period of time.
Fresh starts. Whether they’re daily events or a bit more infrequent, they are important. They give us a chance to reconcile, to catch our breath, to reassess, to renew. Without them, life could easily become overwhelming at times.
Fresh starts and cheesecake. What more could you want?
We’re getting there.
I started to say that there has been very little fiber activity over the past month, but there’s been more than I realized; those odd little moments as you wait for one deadline or catch your breath between assignments really add up!
I’ve agreed to do a spindle workshop in October, and suddenly Marianne (one of my spinners) and I found ourselves demo’ing spindle and wheel for a random collection of folks at the local 4H farm on the 6th. It was an odd day, and Marianne and I ended up just having our own cozy little spinning meeting, but we did have the chance to put a few folks on a spindle and show them that there is more to spinning than the old black-and-white pictures they remember about their great-great grandmother carding unwashed wool outside in the yard of the family farm. Most of them have no idea that they can get prepared spinning fibers, and I have to say that I really think that the best way to tempt people who are otherwise NOT interested in fiber in spinning is not to hand them a greasy fleece—but to hand them a bit of clean, well-prepared and brightly colored roving. For those who are already interested in spinning, it’s a different question and starting with fleece can be perfect. But the average person off the street who has no prior interest? Most of them think of it as stinky smelly stuff and feel a pressing need to wash their hands immediately afterward—and you can’t really blame them, particularly if the fleece they’re handed is not a handspinner’s fleece.
With that in mind and with the idea that I’d use the materials for the October workshop, I went ahead and brought in a teacher’s pack of Babe spindles and dyed some Brown Sheep rovings. So, we had these:
And these:
So, there sat Marianne and I, spinning and giggling at the absurdity of being placed in a corner which was largely outside the traffic pattern, surrounded by her handspun and some colorful rovings. Odd, but still fun.
At least I’m all set for October!
And there have been a few yarns finished in the interim . . .
It’s just Corriedale, but Crown Mountain Farm does wonderful colors. This is an old colorway I don’t even know if they still carry: “Azure Dreams.” Spun semi-woolen, thick-thin, and 2-ply, for 7.5 ounces and 516 yards. I seem to be the queen of thick-thin these days, and I’m figuring it is just a side-effect of the past few months’ instability. Profound as it is not to say, spinning seems to reflect life these days, and I think we can safely say that life has been fairly uneven. The WPI ranges from 11-18, but I’m very into soft yarns, so it’s a lovely squishy stuff which will knit up into a wonderfully smushy fabric for someone.
It’s Norwegian White in the “Kentucky Derby” colorway from Spunky Eclectic. A bit less than 12 ounces, spun thick-thin and bulky with a TPI around 4 in order to keep it fairly soft. WPI ranges from around 28-4. Lightly fulled, 478 yards.
Norwegian White is one of those wools which is too coarse for me, but which spins up into a surprisingly lofty and relatively soft yarn when it’s spun in low twist singles.
In contrast, there was this:
Organic Merino roving from Spunky Eclectic, in “Storms of Jupiter” colorway. Spun semi-woolen. A worsted weight at roughly 10wpi, 365 yards, 215 grams, in a true 3-ply. Very soft, and very squishy.
And this:
It’s not grey. Really. But I can’t get it to take a good photo! It’s a deep blue-green in various hues, spun thick-thin as a low-twist single. The fiber was a gifted handcarded batt from Ullsmeden, and consists of 50% Norwegian lamb, 35% Merino, 15% Tussah, and a bit of Angelia. The fiber lent itself to a thick-thin textured single, and there are 219 yards in the 3 ounces, ranging from 6-22wpi. I’ve no idea what it’ll become, but it needs to be something special.
And finally, there was this:
It’s what I call a corset yarn. The core and one single are spun in one direction and plied together, and the final single is spun in the other and plied with the 2-ply. The fiber was “Sweet Grass” Polwarth batts and roving from Enchanted Knoll Farm and the color is more moss-green than appears here. But I’m not satisfied. I underestimated the strength of the colors in the batt, and overestimated the colors in the roving, so I didn’t have the distinction between the core and the laces I wanted. Nor have I got the tension quite right, so the laces aren’t spaced the way I want them. Nevertheless, it’s a soft but moderately firm and very squishy yarn.
There are 49 yards in the little 2-ply remnant (10-16wpi thick-thin), and 221 yards in the corset yarn (9-12wpi).
I’ll get it right the next time.
Looking ahead to the future, I gave in to temptation. This just arrived:
It’s a fleece from a coated CVM ram named “Rifle” and it’s already clean; Morro Fleece Works did a wonderful job on the wash. For the moment, I’m going to tuck it away. It’s a very spongy wool . . .
and I haven’t decided how I want to spin it. It has incredible elasticity and is very soft, I combed a few test locks, but I’m not entirely satisfied. I need to sample a bit, and I’d like to see what happens when it’s blended with a bit of Merino and silk.
And there, friends and neighbors, you have the scoop. This is the last week of deadlines until August, and July 3rd starts the Tour de France—which means it also starts the Tour de Fleece. For those not in the know, the Tour de Fleece is a daily spinning event; it’s a way of cheering on the riders for the Tour and doing a bit of stash busting. Do I have any idea what I’m going to spin? Heck no. Ask me next week.
