Spinning (Tour de Fleece 2016)

[muninnhuginn]

Almost every day of the Tour de France, I spun.

A 13-gramme oak on maple top-whorl drop spindle needed running in--and I needed to get the muscle memory for spindling properly established. I also needed to tackle my problem fibre: wool. I've happily managed slippery fibres like alpaca and camel but plain old wool, and varieties that are deemed good for beginners, has not been a success. Too resistant, too sticky, hard to draft. I suspect I've been tense and keeping my hands too close together when drafting.

The good thing about the TdF is the community posting, providing support and accountability. (And I won a prize, too.)

The bad thing: heat. My zombie hands became hot and sweaty enough to felt my floof :-(

And the results:

- 25g Shetland (white)

- 25g Falkland (white)

- 18g BFL (white)

- 19g Romney Marsh (carded), 5g Romney Marsh (uncarded)

- c35g "candy cane"

- 50g fine wool with slubs

- small quantity (not-weighed) dyed alpaca

And I learned that Shetland is lovely to work with, if tacky. Falkland is great, too. I found BFL (Blue Faced Leicester) less appealing, tho' having found the small sample I'd tried out previously, I can handle it a great deal more competently now.

The Romney Marsh lamb locks were curly, resistant. So I combed them, another new to me activity. Worked like a dream.

That was my big experiment out of the way. The remainder of the days was about increasing my output. I think I succeeded in this.

I also read entire book on animal fibres: Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook by Carol Ekarius and Deborah Robson. Highly informative, if a little US-centric (with the inevitable "intertsing" "facts" about UK geography).

Yesterday, I had a mammoth session winding a single ball of the two slubby singles and then plying them. Took hours. But the result, now waiting for a wash, was worth it.