Stuffed

I might have been able to squeeze another couple of yards of plied wool onto this bobbin, but when they say Nano bobbins hold two ounces, they mean two ounces. This is roughly 2.25, and I knew I was pushing my luck. So...details! This is my first spin on the EEW Nano, and it was an absolute joy! I spun two bobbins, each with a smidge over an ounce of Corriedale wool, and then rather than plying them on my Louët, I decided to see how the Nano behaved with a full load. Because the singles were so fine, I had a little trouble controlling the amount of twist due to not staying focused on the job at hand. My tendency was to feed the plied yarn onto the bobbin before twisting it sufficiently, which I could have remedied by turning the speed down, but then I tended to overtwist in compensation. It's just going to take a little practice, and having said that, this is still a perfectly workable yarn. I'm very curious to find out how many yards are on there. I'll add a footnote when I find out.

Footnote: Unbelievable! It measured off at 266 yards!

Nano Ounce

There it is! My first Nano ounce of Corriedale singles is done, and I am loving the way the Nano lets me spin a fine thread almost effortlessly. When this is made into a two-ply yarn, it will be a lace-weight, and I am really curious to know how many yards...miles!...of wool thread is on this bobbin. As someone who swore they'd never buy an e-spinner, I am eating my words. As for the fractal spin I've been doing on Bronka, the second skein is resting, waiting to be plied. I've given her another fractal-ish project to keep her busy for the rest of Tour de Fleece.

Spinning My Eel

I swore I wasn't going to do this. In fact, only last week I told a friend I wasn't even remotely tempted to buy an e-spinner because I enjoy the treadling action of a spinning wheel. And then...because I wasn't tempted, you understand...I started reading up on them, and I discovered that the Electric Eel Nano was receiving glowing praise from all quarters. Plus, it was affordable...and by "affordable," I mean under $150 when other e-spinners go for $800 and up. Okay, it's tiny, but it holds two ounces. I usually put my yarns up in two-ounce skeins, and that's two-ply, i.e., two one-ounce bobbins, so the Nano would be more than adequate for my purposes. I looked at my budget. I looked at the calendar. I hadn't bought myself a prezzie in a long time, and September Morn is kinda just almost not quite nearly around the corner. I said to myself, "I need something new to learn," and that was the final word in the mental argument. The Nano arrived on schedule Tuesday, and after 15 minutes of thinking I was never going to get around the "no takeup" issues I'd seen other people posting about, I realized that I was using too heavy a leader, and the friction against the O-rings on the flyer hooks was preventing it from winding on. I changed out to a leader made out of sewing thread, and bingo! I was off and running. What I'm spinning here is some rather coarse Corriedale, and I'm drafting just enough hairs to hold together to make a very fine yarn. And what a great add-on challenge for the Tour de Fleece!

Leftovers

Day 184: At the end of any plied spinning project, the spinner will probably have some yardage left over on one bobbin. If this is a short length, it can be pulled out until the end is reached, then doubled back and carefully spliced so that the remainder can be spun up (bottom photo, double ply white Corriedale). However, if there is too much left to stretch out across your living room with a weight at the bottom of the loop, you have two choices: leave it on the bobbin if you intend to spin more of the same fiber at some point in the (possibly) distant future, or you can have some fun playing with it to try out a new technique. In this case, I needed to free up a bobbin in order to begin a new project and had about 100 yards of Corriedale single-ply left over. I decided it was time to try making bouclé (upper photo).

Bouclé is a labour-intensive yarn. First of all, you will need two Z-twist strands to ply together. At least one of them should be hand-spun because this is a spinning project after all, but the the second can be anything you feel is suitable for a core. The core strand isn't going to show much in the finished yarn. I went hunting in my fiber stash for a skinny Z-twist. Most 4-ply commercial yarns wind up as S-twist because the singles are spun as Z, so nothing in my yarn bins was going to work, but crochet cotton had the proper twist. The one I pulled out to use as my core thread was also a leftover, the tail end of an ancient ball of 20 weight. It was green. "Eh," I said to myself, "it's an experiment. Who cares?" The next step was to select a binder from my sewing thread drawer. I found a blue-green which matched "close enough for government work." Now I was ready to start my bouclé.

To spin bouclé, the core yarn is held in one hand and fed onto the bobbin smoothly. The cover yarn (in this case, single ply Corriedale wool) is held in the other hand, and as the core yarn is drawn onto the bobbin, the cover yarn is pushed up along it to form loose coils around the core. This is repeated in steps at the spinner's discretion, and the two plies are spun in the opposite direction from how they were originally spun (two Z-twists are spun using an S-twist to combine them). To help you visualize the result, the two-ply will then look something like a spring (cover) with a swab stick (core) in its center. When you are done plying the two together, you are ready to add a third ply using sewing thread, and going back to a Z twist. The sewing thread serves as a binder to hold the cover strand in place, and to open it out into the typical "snarls" which give bouclé its unique look (top photo). I'm not sure how I'll use the yarn (roughly 35 yards), but it was fun to make.

Spinning My Wheel

Day 9: When the weather's crummy, I may be just sitting here spinning my wheel. I needed a break from quilting, what with one project on the frame, one in construction and another awaiting a few lines of machine-stitching, but mainly because a friend has asked me to batt, back and hand-stitch an heirloom quilt top made by her paternal grandmother. It came in the mail yesterday, Dresden plate big enough to cover a king-sized bed, and dominated by pink prints. Yeah, pink. That little fact can work two ways. Either I will find it horribly difficult to devote myself to, or I'll work like fury at it to get it out of the house as quickly as possible. Since it's for a friend, I anticipate the latter. In any event, I wanted to have a breather from working over the frame, so I pulled out my spinning wheel and finished up a second skein of double-ply yak in about three days. I was sure I had more yak hair, but couldn't find it when I dug into my stash. That left me with three choices: creamy white Corriedale top, silky silver Gotland top, or grey fleece (a gift from a friend). The Corriedale won, if for no other reason than it's been a while since I made any white yarn. I'm finding the fiber an absolute delight to work with and had intended to fill the basket with it for this photo, but when I went to get it out, I pulled down a large bag I had assumed was fleece, but which in fact was the remaining yak. Well, nuts! Since I only have a pound of the Corriedale, I'll finish it up first. I'm betting you'd have another meaning in mind if you told someone you'd be yakking and spinning your wheel(s).