Competition Entry

The two entries for the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival competition were posted off yesterday.  Here's a picture of them all labelled up and ready to go.  The three CF scarves were finally finished (sewing off the ends) and fulled and the skein of 3-ply was fulled and stretched a little to straighten it out.

The festival is on the weekend of the 5th and 6th of May and we get back from St Louis on the 5th so will pop along on the 6th to see what they thought of the entries (and perhaps buy a few things!)

CF#1 scarf and skein.

Near disaster

So there I was happily plying three Clun Forest singles into yarn when one of the leather bearings on the bobbin popped out.  It happens occasionally - I've re-glued most of them.  While fixing that, the lovely 3-ply yarn came in contact with the fairly well worn leather bearing at the font of the bobbin and, of course, it was covered in Vaseline (lubricant) and a ton of worn leather powder.  Instant black mark on the pristine white, and half way through filling the bobbin to boot.

But stepping back a little while.  I had been spinning top into consistent singles with the intention of making a 3-ply yarn to enter into the Maryland Sheep and Wool festival.  I had half filled nearly 4 bobbins (one I was not really happy with, so did another), with the eventual goal of making the required 2oz skein.

I had another small problem in that my bobbins are all the same size and typically a full 3-ply bobbin has come in at about 1.4 to 1.6 oz so I was not even sure that I could create enough  yarn to make the minimum for the entry.  Hence I had already been considering how I could join yarn to ensure I had enough.  Along came the black stain - I then had no choice.

So the procedure was to break the yarn at the stain, leaving that yarn on bobbin #1, and then ply another new bobbin with the remaining singles.  Wind that bobbin (#2) on to the niddy noddy, which meant I would be joining the original break 'ends' and keeping the flow of the locks in the correct direction.  The join itself was from advice for knitters  to 'felt' the wool.  I split the yarn at each end into singles, and measured them so that they were all close enough to the same length, then using some water and a little rubbing semi felted the singles together.  Once done I then twisted the bobbin around in the directing of plying until it all came back together as yarn - then wound the rest of the bobbin onto the niddy noddy - creating a skein of around 2.5oz

The finished skein

Not quite the smooth process I had imagined, but now ready to join the scarf as my two entries in the show. this one as a hand spun from raw fleece (Anne was responsible for the washing and the selection of the 'best' locks, so that I could comb to make top, then spin true worsted)