Wednesday 9 January 2008

Coming Out....

I bought a 2nd hand Ashford Traveller some months ago, so amongst socks and lace I have been teaching myself to spin... so just to prove I'm still alive and around as I've no real knitting on the go at the moment (I'm having that post-Christmas-knit-present phase) apart from two pairs of socks, both for me I thought I'd show you a photo of my latest hand spun.....

The fibre was purchased from
The Yarn Yard at Woolfest last year; it's 100% Organic Merino Pencil roving, it has no 'name' so I deemed it "Spring Meadow" - it's the 3rd from the left.




Here it is after plying, but prior to wet finishing....

and after wet finishing, I was just curious to see the difference it made....


and the finished skein after finishing, drying and re-hanking....

As for the finishing I got a bit confused so it actually got a bit of a 'fulling' followed by 'Twist Setting' hence it has a bit of a halo, which if I'm honest I'm not so keen on.... but I'm pleased with the overall finished skein....

I managed to produce 242m in this 100g skein of a 2 ply yarn with 17wpi and 9tpi; it's the best I've managed to get out of pencil roving so far... I expect pencil roving to be easy but I still find it difficult to draft to get it even....

10 comments:

Kai said...

wow!! that is gorgeous!!

Soo said...

Beautiful.

As a total non-spinner though I need some translations/more detail on the process. What is wet finishing? What's twist setting?

Hellbelle said...

Very pretty indeed :)

YarnSnob said...

very very pretty, i have some pencil roving but dare not spin it lol, too frightened...eek

fleegle said...

Lovely! As an ex-spinner, I can appreciate the work that went into making that--you have more patience than I do!

Probably Jane said...

Lovely yarn! I find pencil roving more difficult to get even than I think I should too. Itfelslike hard work.

I have some of the Yarn Yard merino silk on the wheel at the moment and it is so much easier!

Lindsey said...

That's beautiful! Very nice. I haven't tried a pencil roving yet...I hope to order some soon, but I want to knit with some of the handspun I have on hand now before I order more fibre for my stash. I can see how, especially if you're aiming for a thinner yarn, it would be more work than it looks like, though!

Colette said...

Beautiful! I've only tried spinning with a drop spindle and didn't like it very much. So what are you going to make with your hand-spun yarn?

Lacefreak said...

I think you did a great job spining! It looks really pretty good. It did puff up after washing but I think that it would knit up really lovely. The colors are great. I've never spun pencil roving. I like to pre-draft thin strips of fiber that I've pulled from batts or roving and spin a little slower so I can have control of how fat the single ends up. Takes more work to pre-draft and fluff the fiber but it's worth it!

fleegle said...

Dear LittleBerry-

Threats and intimidation? Hmm. I need to purchase a black sheet today to block the shawl before I take photos. Otherwise, it won't show up. And it's been raining--not good for taking pictures. I will try very hard to give you some eye candy this weekend...