Fiber Friday-May 13 2011

[Mossie]

I'm still a very new spinner, so it seems queer to me to be starting this week's Fiber Friday thread.  That being said, it's Friday and I'm excited about what I've been spinning.

First up is a finished batch of white roving from SSS.  It's two hundred ten yards of uneven loveliness that I finally finished this week.  I have some Kool-Aid set aside waiting to dye it with.  My hope is that it'll grow up to be a blue-purple entrelac scarf for my mother.  She was totally jealous of a similar scarf I made for myself, so I figured she'd like one made from her daughter's homespun in her favorite colors even more.



I was so excited to finish that batch of yarn because I went to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival last weekend and came home with scrummy new fiber to play with.  I started with this absolutely lovely blue/green/yellow BFL roving. 



I'm in love with color now.  I started spinning with undyed roving because I was told it was easier.  This batch of BFL is my very first dyed roving and it's amazing.  Even drafting is more fun.  This could cause issues.  I'm far too poor to consistently provide myself with dyed roving, which means that dying the yarn for my mother's scarf may be the start of another new hobby, not what I necessarily need right now.

What has come from your spindles and wheels this week?

[jexxican]

I love your singles. They don't even seem over-spun. I need to work on not over-spinning singles.
I agree that spinning colors is much more fun. I like seeing how the roving colors combine/separate when spun.

Here's my show:
The cocoons I told you about last week. Like I said, I need to work on my singles. And I need to read that article again before I try cocoons again. I'm so impatient. This is all from the raw fleece I cleaned:


I got some rovings from a shop on Etsy, Friends in Fiber, that were supposed to fade from light to dark through the whole roving... not as good as they looked in their store. Maybe if I had split the roving different it would have worked better. I plied the light end of the burgundy with the dark end of the blue and got 2 different colorways kind of. I wanted to try putting them together but I don't think I pull of the join very well on plied yarns so I decided not to mess with it. The burgundy is Polwarth and the Colonial Blue is BFL/Silk.


together:

And I had some left over from both sides of the pink so I spun them together to get 28 yards of this:

[nikschaf]

Pretty stuff!!

Mossie, I love that colorway you're spinning.  I hope your dye job turns out well.  I'm in the same boat as you -- can't afford to buy pre-dyed roving except once in a great while as a splurge, but I find dyeing is almost as much fun as spinning.  Good luck!

Jexx -- cocoons are tricky!  Good job!  I struggled with overspinning the time I tried cocoons.  I got frustrated and only spun about 45 yards worth before setting it aside to potentially try another day.  So I've made actually two tiny attempts at cocoons and that's it.  I really like the pinks you spun at the end.  I like the texture of that polwarth/silk/bfl, though I'm having a hard time envisioning how the colorway will work up in a project.  Any ideas what you'll make with it?

[Belladune]

Mossie, I love that blue/yellow/green colorway.  Very nicely spun too!
Jexxie, I love your attempt at cocoons. 


I should go take pictures..... :/

[edenkitty]

So these are my first yarns from my new to me wheel! I've been having a ton of fun, I actually have five more skeins waiting for pictures to be taken, and a whole bunch of older ones, I guess I'll try to be better!


These were spun from 8 ounces of Corriedale Cross Wool Top, and then I dyed them! YAY! I love dyes, and though these are only Kool-aid, I've managed to grab a whole bunch of dye and am going to actually DYE more yarn!




This one, is super thick thin and amazing! I loved the way the colors came out! Then I wrapped that bad boy up in some reinforced metallic I got at an amazing tag sale. I actually had my sister in mind when I was spinning this, she started begging me for it! I had a great time egging her on and just saying no! Then when I had it all skeined up for her, I handed it to her and she almost cried! She actually just finished her scarf she made from it, and it's amazing!




This one is all for me! I managed to get a great black out of food dyes! I AM SO PROUD! I think this one is a bit vampy, but I love the sparkle and the black together, and it's really just so much fun! I'm going to keep up the plying!


What do you guys think? I'm really curious as to weather it's crap or not, since my sister is wonderful, and biased!

[LaughingLark]

Mossie, your yarns are beautiful! Great pics of them, too.
jexxican, I like your corespun. I'm still not brave enough to try. The other yarns came out pretty. It looks like it is very soft yarn. Yum!
edenkitty, I love them. I wish my first yarn off the wheel looked like yours does! Mine looked like my kitty had found it and bunny-kicked it to heck and back, and that was right after I skeined it up! I don't speak of that yarn much. I'm just happy that I don't (usually) mangle my fiber to death now.

San Clemente Sunset.
This is a bulky yarn. I kind of like my yarns bigger because I am in the bifocal age now, and bigger yarns mean I don't need to knit with my glasses on all the time. Plus I am impatient when I knit. Bigger knits faster. I have a short attention span. I plyed this yarn from a center-pull ball. I had some trouble with that.


I needed some more brown and cream to finish a beanie hat currently on the needles. Also a bulky yarn. Sheep Shed Brown and Cream:



Berry Bubble Gum.
 Another fairly bulky thick and thin. I'd like to make my spinning more consistent one day, but I like the random bumps and thickness variations. Some times I let slubs go through on purpose.


Laughing Water.
This one was done on my Turkish spindle, on a road trip. It's a soft spun single that I hope to use as weft for a scarf. I will later spin a stronger worsted single for the warp. This was dyed with Easter egg colors. The colors made me think of a spring that bubbles out of the ground in Ha Ha Tonka park in the Missouri Ozarks. The water comes up out of an underground cave system, and it's very cold and bright blue-green at the beginning of the spring.


Edited to add:
I got a handmade Navajo spindle for mother's day. My hubby bought it for me from Weaving in Beauty. It was handmade by Henry Lee Dedman, a Navajo, and it is light for how big it is, and spins very fast. I can't wait till I have time to card more rolags for a thick single, so I can practice spinning on it!

[Belladune]

better late then never right?

Neked merino:


this I posted a while ago in the ongoing spin along, but never in a FF, and not these close ups!  Art yarn:



edenkitty, I love the colors of that first one.
Laughing lark, I love the colors of your first one too!

[calluna]

Bravo, all! Colors and non-colors, they all look lovely. 

I did complete some yarn, but haven't had the time to get pictures, so hopefully next week.  

[OspreyWife]

Loving the colors this week!

I finally finished the last of the Easter theme roving I had, ugh I got so sick of it that I didn't even finished spinning it all. I still got 155 yards though! I got a Babe electric spinner that will be here tomorrow so there should be more yarn from me next week!


Untitled by OspreyWife, on Flickr

[jexxican]

Nikschaf, I don't know what will become of the blue/burgundy. I am getting a table at the Farmer's Market this year and I am hoping to sell them. Someone else can worry about it.

Edenkitty, you should post a picture of the scarf your sister made in the spun to finished photos. Just begause you didn't finish it doesn't mean it shouldn't be seen on our boards, right?

LLark, I like big yarns too! I'm not as old, though. I'm having a hard time making anything thick enough for a single lately. It's all what I could consider good for a N-plying.

Bella, Yay! Naked!

Ospreywife, You're done! I love it when I finish something I've been nibbling at forever. Just get it over with! And you did, and it is beautiful. I am happy for your electric spinner, but I don't envy you. I really enjoy treadling.

On that note, sometimes I think hook my wheel up to a generator so all this leg motion produces more than just yarn. Not that yarn's not good enough, but the potential is so much more! Of course if I did then spinning might make me feel like a hamster or work horse. Hm, something to think about though, eh? Anyone have an idea of how I might hook it up? Maybe the guys at Homes Depot would know?