Wheel Cleaning

I finished giving the Ashford Traditional wheel a clean and tune up.  The first thing was to add some more hooks on the flyer - set between the existing hooks on the opposite side, to allow a more evenly spread bobbin when I'm doing thinner singles. While I was doing that I replaced the existing hooks so that they at least matched the new ones.  The hook for the scotch tension spring was also replaced while I was at it.

New hooks on the flyer (bottom) and replaced (top)

I've also been spinning singles using the multitude of coloured roving in the package I received.  I'll spin sections of roving chosen randomly, and eventually make up a three ply which will show off the colours.

Assorted roving

There's several blues, greens and purples, and some grey and various wool and mohair and blends of the two.  All, I believe, home dyed. Each is a little bit different to spin, but so far it's working well.

Wheel ready to go

I undid the leather joining the conrod to the treadle assembly and treated it with some natural leather protection.  Then applied some vaseline to any bearing surface before treating all the wood with tung oil (applied and then buffed off).  The wood treatment has hidden 90% of the minor scratches and dings.  The wheel now is all but silent, minus the slight noise of the scotch tension on the bobbin.  Perfect.

First yarn from the Ashford

There was a bobbin full of a blended wool singles and I wanted to try out my navajo plying on this wheel.  It went fine and I was quickly able to ply the entire bobbin and wind it into a ball.

Ball of three play

The tension was not absolutely perfect as I got used to the wheel, but overall the yarn came together pretty well and with some more of the fiber in the package I received I should be able to make up enough for some form of project.

Back in Business

My sister-in-law was kind enough to loan me a spinning wheel and find a whole pile of wool/fiber/accessories to keep me busy for some time.  The wheel is a great little Ashford Traditional with a lazy kate and 5 bobbins.

The loaner wheel

Nothing but a quick dust and it'll be ready to go

I gave it a quick wipe down to remove the dust and tried a little bit of roving through the wheel - worked perfectly.  With a touch of wax to dress up the surface and some lubricant on the bearings it will be whisper quiet and looking superb.

There was a bobbin full of some blended (natural) brown with streaks of white wool through it.  I've rewound it as the end had been lost and will navajo ply it into three ply.  A good test to see if the newly acquired skill (on my Rappard in the US) transfers easily to this wheel.

There's a large plastic bucket full of fiber with lots of dyed wool roving, some silk, some mohair, and even some line linen.  It will be fun to go through that and perhaps card up some nice blended colours and experiment with blending in silk or mohair.  Once spun it can go with the very large bag of homespun wool that also came with the wheel.  Then there is a large bag of commercial wool as well.

On the next trip over to Martinborough I will retrieve the loom - I certainly have enough wool to complete quite a few projects in my time here.

Needless to say it is great to be back spinning.

Arrived in New Zealand

Anne and I arrived safely in NZ for our year long stay.  The last few days have been a blur of routine tasks and exploring the city of Wellington again.  It is looking like the loan of a spinning wheel is possible (and a bonus of some bags of wool - content not really known), and as soon as we have a place to stay I will be able to set up the upright loom (so far the places we have looked at are fairly small so it might be a stretch to have two looms up and running!)

The weather has been superb and we are slowly getting over the jet-lag. 

Photo's to follow once I have something set up.

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.