Use it or Lose it

Use it or lose it.

I haven’t really been spinning since I started weaving because time is finite.

When I was last spinning I was focused on laceweight yarn that was stable but incredibly lofty, so was mostly working with woolen spun low twist (low twist for fine yarns- still twisty enough to be stable!) wool singles stabilized with a silk ply. I was doing supported spindling so the yarn was formed with extremely minimal tension outside the drafting zone.

I took Abby Franquemont‘s backstrap weaving class last week at ANWG, and want to keep exploring, which means I need yarn that’s appropriate for the purpose. Essentially that means fine, strong, smooth, high twist yarn. So other than gauge, more or less the opposite of the stuff I was spinning regularly 3-4 years ago when I was spinning regularly.

I thought about buying a commercial yarn, or using cotton, but I want to work in wool and I have so much unspun fiber that seemed stupid.

So I’ve spent the day remembering how to spin a consistent fine single, and dialing in a worsted-ish drafting method that avoids pinching with my thumbs (arthritis is a bitch).

So there’s a left to right progress shot of my samples, single on the flyer, a weaving bobbin giving scale, and a shot of the fiber I was working with, which wasn’t as smooth as would have been best for this sort of thing, but COLOR.

I think the final sample is Good Enough. I’ll spin up enough of the other color blocks out of the braid to give me four colors to work with, and then see if I can remember how to make a warp.