Farewell Gift

Ever since getting the book "The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook" by Deborah Robson and Carol Ekarius out of the Potomac Fiber Arts Guild library for a month a little while back I have wanted a copy.  It is a very comprehensive listing of 200+ types of fibers, but with accompanying photo's, and a whole range of information.  They delve into the breed history, purpose, locations, as well as showing locks (clean and raw) and samples of spun, woven and knitted yarn.  It gives recommended uses, and appears to be superbly researched.  I was convinced when, in the Gotland section, they went on to mention the Stansborough variety and how the wool from them was used to make capes for the Lord of The Rings movies (I have a tie made of the hobbit cape material - it is all I could afford !).

Well anyway we were out to dinner with a friend and she gave us a parting gift: the book, and she's not a spinner/weaver fiber person in particular - she just went on line and found a book that looked appropriate.  What a superb piece of luck for me - so now I have the definative source book for any/all fiber I might encounter in the future.  Plus great reading for a long while yet.

Larger bobbins required

I finished of the chain plying of the blended wool last night, and the result was 110 yards 1.8 oz of yarn.  the downside was that at this weight of wool my bobbin can only hold 100 yards.  For this or other plying jobs I'll have to look at a wheel that can take larger bobbins.  Something to note for the future.

The skeins

 And now: give the wheel a good clean, apply some Lemon Oil to the wood and Vaseline to the leather bearings and it will be ready to pack away.

Final spinning

I had carded a 'blend' of Clun Forest, some brown Corriedale - with the resulting batts having some all white, some all brown, and some completely blended - in layers.

Part of a batt

Spinning from the mixed batt give some random stripes/bands of the three colours in varying degrees by just spinning as normal for these batts (short forward draw).

Half a bobbin of singles - random striping

Then for the first time I have tried chain plying (also known as Navajo plying).  Having heard about this technique for some time I was keen to try it out and see what it would do with this 'random' yarn.  I do have some books with 'how to' but of course, they are all packed.  Thank goodness for the internet.  I found a very useful and straight forward example of how to do this at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmlwtojLXI8
It seemed straight forward and indeed that was the case - so I am now half way through the 2oz bobbin of yarn I intend to make.

3 ply

The brown colour is not coming out particularly well in the photo's - just my camera. The yarn is a very nice 'warm' variegated brown that should work for a hat or gloves perhaps?

This will be the last spinning before the wheel heads off to storage - some time later in the week.