Sep 7, 2011

Spinning disaster and spinning delight

My recent spinning adventures were a mixed bag.
Strangely enough I love the spindling results, but the yarns I spun on my wheel are a nightmare.

So first the nightmares:

4oz Falkland roving dyed by Spunky Eclectic. I  love Falkland because it is soft, spins easy, usually provides instant gratification. Well, I overspun this - which seems to be my major problem at the moment, after skeins and skeins of low twist yarns....
And I didn't only overspin but also split the roving in a way that the beautiful fall colors into a muddy mess.



4oz Merino/Bamboo roving, also dyed by Spunky Eclectic. Again I wanted to give this a little more twist than I usually do, and .... a rope. A rope in pretty colors, but a rope nonetheless.



The worst of all:
100% Pygora. You might remember that I spun Pygora twice before, one beautiful silver colored yarn and an ivory white fuzzy shiny beauty. The third lot I had was the largest, more than 4 oz, and it seemed as if this was the softest lot of the three. We will never know because - again - I overspun. You would think I would learn, no? This is the real nightmare, nothing I can do with this camel colored wire...




 

Now to the delights (thankfully there were a few, otherwise I think I would have tossed my equipment)

2 of 4 oz pure tussah silk, hand dyed by Squoosh fiberarts in colorway Fraises.



This is the second lot of Pygora. Absolutely gorgeous, I think. It's shiny and fuzzy and soft. The fiber was by Shaggy Bear Farmd in Oregon, sorry, I don't have a website link.


And some spindling in process that seems to turn out OK:

SW Merino/Cashmere blend on my Golding ringspindle hand dyed by Corgi Hill Farm, and



Merino/Bamboo blend, hand dyed by NewHuehandspuns, spun on my new Jenkins turkish spindle.


And I am trying to take the curse off my wheel be feeding it some beautifully soft Merino/Angora blend.  I will let you know how that goes...

3 comments:

  1. I found this blog while searching for something fun and wool related near Rotterda. I found it interesting to see a Jenkins turkish spindle, because I recently heared of them and was thinking of getting one. I only recently started spinning.
    Do you have any thoughts or comments on these spindels (or spindeles in general)?
    Greetings, Anna

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  2. Hi Anna, I do a lot of spindle spinning, and there are many that I like. However, I must say that I am a sucker for beautiful things, so I do buy expensive equipment if it's beautiful and works well. The Jenkins is one of them, other phantastic regular drop spindles are the Goldings, particularly the ones with the copper rim, they spin forever with very little effort.
    I find the Turkish spindle interesting and I like the concept of winding a ball as you spin, but I have it more as part of a (working) collection than to replace regular drop spindles. For me personally it takes longer to wind the ball on a Turkish spindle than to spin on a regular spindle and wind a ball later or ply from two spindles. Are you on Ravelry? My name there is UschEngel. Not sure how connected you are to other spinners in the ROT area, or whether you want to, but if you are, let me know.
    Regards, Usch

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  3. Hi, I know what you mean with being a sucker for beautiful things. I was drawn towards the Jenkins spindles for the same reason. :)
    I don't know many people around Rotterdam at all, let alone spinners. I moved to Capelle aan den Ijssel one to two years ago and am still trying to establish some networks and friendships.
    I taught myself spinning from internet resources on a spindle from the "Het komplete Handwerken" material which I bought on marktplaats. Last week I followed a workshop on spinning on a drop spindle in the textile research center in Leiden and I really loved to talk to other spinners in person and exchange tips and tricks. I'd really like to get in contact with some other people in the area, which are interested in fiber crafts in general.
    You can find some of the things I made on my deviantArt page
    http://were-were-wolfy.deviantart.com/
    You can also contact me per email
    annaschuermann @ yahoo.de

    P.S. I can also speak Dutch, but I still suck at writing it. I am best in German or English.

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