Mermaids

Last spinning class today. We did silk (cocoons, caps/hankies, lap, tussah top and mulberry top) then angora, milk fibre, soy, bamboo, alpaca top, tencel, corn fibre and nylon glitz.

Tonight I came home and felt like going back to good old uncomplicated wool...so I decided to spin some of the fleece I dyed last week (third pic down). So far, so good, I think it kind of looks like mermaids.



Not sure how much yardage I'll get but hopefully I can ply it with silk thread or something to eke out the length.

Colour my world

Here are the results of the dyeing adventures at spinning class today...these are all dyed with Landscape protein dyes, using the slather in dye, wrap in glad wrap, steam in a ziplock bag method.

My yarn, the colours are a little deeper than this but you get the idea



Some merino top...which is really a nice jade/malachite semi solid...a colour my camera refuses to photograph well



Some Finn/Corriedale fleece...this is getting close to felted maybe...will have to see what happens when it's dry and I can flick it.



Hopefully it's okay because I'll be interested to see how it spins up.

And some more fleece and ditto.



I managed not to dye myself, so go me! We also tried spinning suri alpaca (in locks...HARD plus the locks look spookily like human hair so it was hard not to feel you'd mugged some poor brunette and shaved her head), bamboo top/carded (ditto), kid mohair (pretty and nice to spin so it's a pity that mohair makes me itchy), cotton (well, Jo was brave enough to try that and the verdict was WORSE THAN THE ALPACA) then some of the other sort of alpaca which was do-able. After all that, it was kind of nice to go back to spinning some nice coated Finn/Suffolk fleece which I've mostly got the hang of. Yay for wool!

Next week is our last week where we shall attempt silk! Should be fun.

Excited!

Because I have ordered one of these!



It's a Majacraft Pioneer and I can't wait for it to arrive! I've been spinning on an Ashford Mk1 Traveller loaner at home and using a Majacraft Suzie at my course. I really like the Suzie but between cat dramas and car dramas and various things, it isn't quite in the budget. The Pioneer is the next best thing and if I ever want to trade up to a Suzie or Suzie Pro, all the bits and pieces will fit. Plus my fellow inner nana embracer, Jo, has bought a Little Gem so I'll get to play with that too!

Tomorrow at class we're doing some dyeing. I'll probably manage to dye myself rather than the yarn!

This is one of the things we'll be dyeing...



Yarn flicked, spun, plied and washed by me. Not exactly sock yarn yet and it's kind of underspun in spots but yay, yarn! (From memory it's a Finn/Corriedale cross fleece which was pretty grubby). Currently spinning fron a Finn Suffolk which was coated and is much nicer to work with. Plus trying to master spinning top which the Traveller doesn't like so much!

To ply or not to ply

We choose...ply! Because I think knitting with singles is for better knitters than me at this stage.

Today in our spinning course we plied the singles we'd spun over the week (well, I plied most of mine...I apparently spun more than would fit on one bobbin!)

And this is the result!



Not sure how many yards this is but it must be a few. It needs to be washed and then we get to dye it next class.

Of wheels and lanolin

I started my spinning wheel course at the Handweavers and Spinners Guild of Victoria last week.

We're starting off spinning raw fleece (which means I smell like lanolin in a way I haven't since I was a teenager helping with shearing on a friend's farm)...and so far I have produced this:



So yay! It resembles yarn (though I won't show you the start of the other bobbin which had a few issues!) At the moment I'm using a Ashford Traveller Mk 1 on loan from the Guild and lustfully looking at pics of wheels on the internet. I think I like it better than spindling. It's kind of hypnotic despite the inevitable beginner frustrations!

On Sunday I'll learn to ply and move onto spinning top...we're lucky because there are only four of us in class, so we're getting lots of time with our instructor.