Isabel's scarf

Yesterday I warped up the Orlon for Isabel's scarf for the first trial of the Nilus Leclerc Dorothy table loom.  The colours are pink/fuscia combinations and it will be a basic twill in a crammed and spaced warp (the first time I have tried this).

Warped and tied off

 Note the calculations in the book under the warp - needed to work out the spacing to take the warp from twice as much (as the calculated sett) to 0 and back.  More about this later...

Chained

The Loom all ready to go

The only raddle I have (for the Macomber), and just a tad wider than needed!

That's the whole warp stretched out (enough for 3 scarves)

And finally wound on and through the lease sticks

I had a close call after working out the spacings carefully for a 10 dent reed, only to find out that the reed I had carefully cleaned and set up for this project was in fact a 9 dent reed.

Recalculated spacings

I won't know if I have it right until I get weaving on this one...

TT II

During a brief lull in the spinning last night (doing catch up CF for the RSotBR project), I had another go at the Tennessee Tweed yarn - spinning three very thin singles and then plying it back on itself to get the 3 ply I will be using.  This time I did incorporate a tiny bit of colour - in this case yellow.

The resultant 3-ply works out to around 28 wraps per inch and is VERY strong, which would be a characteristic of the Lincoln long staple.

The small sample of Tennessee Tweed

Great sliver

Anne has been weaving steadily on the RSotB Rug and is nearing completion of the first one (of a pair).  A continuous supply of roving/sliver is necessary and she has become very adept at producing it.  From my reading sliver is similar to roving but without a slight twist - I have found no definition is absolute. Regardless, with some fineness a batt can be stretched out to produce just the right thickness of sliver that can then be wound onto the ski shuttle ready for weaving.  My sliver is a little more rushed (all I have ever needed for spinning - in my defence), and needs more work when actually doing the weaving as the idea is to get 4 weft shots that are reasonably 'even.'

Perfect sliver

3rd Thursday

As mentioned in a previous blog - several of us at the third Thursday spinners group decided to try out some 'long draw' spinning.  Everyone came prepared to work on some aspect of it.  Making rolags, spinning on a charkha, a takli, normal spinning wheels and drop spindles, we all managed to try out some new aspects of long draw.  Everyone was successful, and in my case by the end of three (pre-made) rolags I was starting to get the feel of it.

I had started off prior to the meeting by giving the spinning wheel a good clean/lubricate - something I should be doing more of, but this was a good break - I removed all the bobbins and put new leaders on them, and then I rubbed some lemon oil into all the wood, and then greased all the bearings.  It's looking and working fine.

I used the three rolags spun in singles onto three bobbins.  The plying took care of most of the inconsistencies and the resultant 3-ply yarn has quite an elasticity that I certainly don't see in my 2 or 3 ply worsted/semi-worsted.  I will have to get some more practice at making the rolags as these ones were not consistent and had quite a bit of 'fluff' in them.  If I can make better rolags and do more long draw spinning I should be able to introduce a 'woolen' to the inventory.  My understanding is for warmer/loftier knitting, woolen is the choice.

A 24 yard skein of 3-ply woolen yarn

Spinning Woolen

A couple of us at the Third Thursday Spinning group were discussing the different spinning techniques and we agreed that of all the methods the one we were most familiar with was the long backward draw - used when spinning woolen (vice worsted or some hybrid).

I said I'd prepare some rolags and bring them to the next meeting and we can have a go and perhaps pick up some tips from the more experienced (in this mode) spinners.  That led to problem number one - I'm not very good at hand carding - all the CF we have prepared has either been through the drum carder or combed.  So today I broke out the hand cards and gave it a go.

Ashford hand carders and a number of rolags

I have an Ashford book on carding (it came with the drum carder) which also shows how to card with the hand carders - I've tried before and get all confused about left and right hands, top and bottom of carder etc, so today I jumped on the Internet and found some fairly straight forward instruction videos on the subject.  As it turns out the three I watched were all quite different, but in the end with some logic applied I got into the swing of it and managed to start producing workable (I think) rolags.  We'll find out at the next meeting!!

Tennessee Tweed

I had a turn on the drum carder this morning.  When we were at the Maryland Sheep and Wool show last month we bought some Lincoln  wool (roving).  I wasn't absolutely sure what I'd do with it, but since then have worked up an idea to make some tweed material for a waistcoat.  The wool is naturally coloured a darkish brown with lots of grey streaked through it and it has very long fibers which will mean I can spin a quite thin 3ply yarn.

As the eventual cloth will be a broken twill I need a contrasting (or at least different) colour so I tried a 50/50 blend of Clun Forest and Lincoln.  It has come out quite well.  I did a quick 1 oz batt and stretched that into roving.

Original to the left, and blended roving wound on stick.

I had also run some CF locks through a food colouring dye process - there are samples in the photo above.  I have about 3 times this amount.  It will be introduced randomly during the spinning process to give little snips of colour through the yarn/cloth.

I still have about 4 skeins of Alpaca to make - so won't be spinning this until sometime next month.  As far as the cloth - that will be about two more (loom) projects away.  In the meantime I'll continue carding the wool in preparation.

RSotBR progress

The weaving is now racing along - with over half of the first one finished.

1/2 way through #1

In the photo the structure is a little clearer now.  With nice soft chunky roving stripes between tabby shots - that just show the colour variations in the warp (visible above the fell line and roving shot).

In between weaving sessions Anne is now churning out new batts from the mountain of flicked wool she has accumulated.  It's fairly fast as the wool is so aligned that a couple of runs through the drum carder produces a nice 1.5oz batt ready to be stretched into roving.

Flicked locks

Batts ready to go.

While all this is going on I've been doing a final clean of the Leclerc Dorothy table loom (reed) to get it ready to weave a scarf for Isabel - I've ordered the yarn from Yarn Barn of Kansas.  I'll be using the same orlon I used for the baby blanket which will make a nice 'drapey' scarf - in three shades of lilac and a blue.  More to follow on that.