Fire in the Dark Finale

I finished my novelty yarn, a type of boucle yarn that I can use maybe in a border on a black hat. Here is what I did:

1) I spun a single Z-twist yarn that was 18 wpi (spun in opposite direction of my binder thread [see step 2], the wheel is spun to the right; shown on the bobbin below left). I then set the twist (right photo is before setting twist). I was a little concerned about the yellow color. It was a bit discordant with the other colors, but I thought I would wait and see what the final product looked like before I decided I didn't like it.



2) After the single yarn was dry, I used 40 wt rayon thread in black (plied in the S-direction) and attached it to my leader on my bobbin. Then I attached my single yarn to the leader as well and began loosely wrapping this yarn around my thread at about a 45 degree angle in the same direction the thread was plied (S-direction or spinning my wheel to the left). Hold the single yarn in whatever hand you do not use to draft (I draft with my left, so I held the yarn in my right and the thread was held taut in my left hand). I used my right hand to every once in a while push the singles up in a bunch around the thread. This is a spiral yarn you are creating. The looser you wrap the single yarn, the loopier the yarn will be when you ply it later. I realize this picture is a bit blurry, but you can kind of see how loose I wrapped my single around the rayon yarn and the bunched sections where I pushed the yarn up around the thread. For this yarn, more twist is better than less twist. Try folding a small section to see how much twist you need to add or want. I could have used more twist than I added.



3) After I wrapped the single yarn around my thread, I then plied this yarn back onto itself in the Z-direction, spinning the wheel to the right. It was odd to ply in this direction as I normally ply in the opposite direction. The loops along the yarn like to move a lot, so be careful how tightly you hold the yarn and move your hands down the yarn as you ply.



That's it! I think my little experimental novelty yarn came out great. I learned this type of novelty yarn from Judith MacKenzie McCuin at Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival 2004.

Fire in the Dark

I finally have pictures of what I have been doing. Mostly I have been spinning some yarn up to enter into North Carolina's State Fair, coming up in October. Fun stuff! I entered last year as a novice spinner (less than 1 year) and won several awards, including Best of Show, which shocked and pleased me. I had a great tutor, Robin. :-)

So, what have I been spinning? Wool from Finn sheep. Some of my favorite wool. It is soft like merino (23.5 - 31.0 microns) but is longer in staple length (3 - 6 inches). I love spinning it. If you are curious about other breeds, check out Oklahoma State University's Sheep Breed website. I buy Finn roving from Copper Moose, from either their Ebay store or their regular store. They always send me great stuff. I also buy Finn fleece from Misty Mountain Farm. They have beautiful fleeces. I bought part of one at Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival.

Alright, so what have I done? I spun a 2-plied natural skein, a 2-plied dyed by spinner skein, and a singles dyed by spinner skein. See them below.



I also started a project to make some novelty push and pull yarn. I decided to dye some of my Finn roving. I call it "Fire in the Dark." Take a look:



Here is how I dyed the roving: I use Country Classics dyes in all my dyeing, so use comparable colors if you use other dyes (a red, a yellow, and a purple). I steam most of my dyes into the fiber, so I use squirt bottles to apply the dye. I do this even with some of the solid colors, as I like the variation this technique results in. The following would make enough dye for 2-3 ounces, even though I only dyed 1.2 ounces of wool.

I mixed 1 tsp Tomato Red into 6 oz of water for full strength red, my fire red color.

I mixed 1 tsp Buttercup Yellow in 6 oz of water for the yellow in fire.

I then mixed 1/2 tsp Wild Iris, 1/8 Blueberry, and a pinch (dab really) of Tomato Red in 6 oz of water for the purple. You could also use a blue for that part of the flame.

I used full strength Raven for the black (1 tsp per 6 oz of water).

I then took 1.2 ounces of wet roving. Dyed 1/3 of it black and 2/3 of it like fire (bright red, bright yellow, and some purple). I split the roving so that I could dye the roving without folding it, so each roving length was about 30 inches long. I then laid the roving on a yard long piece of plastic wrap and squirted dye onto each piece of roving. I made sure the red and yellow overlapped so I had some orange in the roving. I then folded the plastic wrap, sealing the roving inside with the dye. I folded the plastic wrapped roving so that the lightest color was on top. I steamed them for 30 minutes. They came out great.

I partitioned the black roving into 3 different sized sections of roving and one of the fire pieces into two different sized pieces. I almost always split my roving into 8 sections lengthwise, so the picture above shows 1/8th of each piece of roving. I then rolled my roving into a ball, taking one piece from each section of roving, from left to right in the picture.

I'll spin it up soon into a DK weight single, then set the twist. I have some black rayon thread, 40 wt, that I will use to wrap the singles around in a push and pull technique. Then, I will ply the yarn back onto itself, making a type of boucle yarn. We'll see how it looks as this is pretty new to me.

Still here

I'm still here, but temporarily not writing on the blog due to job application deadlines and no time to take pictures of FOs or WIPs. Soon I hope.