SpinnySpinny

This weekend I borrowed the drum carder, so I could do a few things. One of those things was the Coopworth, which even scoured twice was still greasy. I tried to pick out the second cuts and VM and all those other annoying bits. What I wasn’t counting on was the tips to disintegrate in carding. So now I have carded batts with even more noils in them than before. And seemingly no less VM, despite cleaning up piles of it from the floor. Most of a day of carding produced six large batts.

I spun a section of one tonight. About ten minutes into it, with a lap full of junk I’d pulled out and a grungy-looking yarn on the bobbin, I skeined it off to wash. It didn’t look any better.

My original idea was to spin half S and half Z and do a striped warp. Not only do I not like this yarn, I don’t want to use it for warp either. It’s full of slubs from all the broken tips and then there’s still the VM. I’ll wait until morning and see how the skein looks dry, but this is seriously turning into a “Life’s too short” project. It’s one thing to go through hours and hours of work wondering if the end result will turn out like you imagined. It’s another entirely to do it for something you are certain is going to suck no matter what.

But I did finally get back to the Merino, I filled the last of the first bobbin. 132 grams. I could get a little more on there if I tried, but I’d have to stop and adjust it too much to be worth the bother. Now I just have to finish the other two.

The hats are back safely, so now I have my regular hat to wear again. And I went to Goodwill this morning and found not only a spindle case (wine bottle carrier) but a jar of Procion MX and a bag of soda ash. Somebody must have dumped excess tye-dye stuff, with as much as most people know about dyes it’s a wonder they even ended up bagged together. Can’t beat 99 cents.

I started back up on preparing fiber for the sock yarn. I have to find a new place to put the comb pad because the current location is killing my wrists. I need to be able to pull straight out but the shelf I have it clamped to is too tall. My arms don’t work that way, and trying to pull down is putting my hands in a weird position. I’m wondering if a low stool and the second shelf would be better. I still have some things to work out with this, but it’s coming along. I may even get enough finished by next week for the fair.

Just because I have given up on getting this yarn done in time for the San Mateo County Fair, that doesn’t mean I’m not working on it. I finished spinning all the fiber I had prepped a few weeks ago, so now I’m back to flicking wool. I’ve been doing a lot of sorting and messy prep work on the kitchen floor, as it’s the easiest to clean. Flicking wool throws little bits of junk everywhere no matter how I try to contain in. I’m going to vacuum and mop in the morning anyway because we have guests coming over, so I figured this would be as good a time as any. The loom parts are put away for tomorrow.

While I was at the store the other day, I got some Ashland Bay top in two identical colorways of Merino and Merino/tussah. Again, everybody was shocked I bought something not natural color, but I’ve been branching out. I’m also coming to terms with commercial top and feel better about spinning it. I’d still much rather do all my own prep, but I’ve gotten better at spinning commercial top without too much reworking (as long as I’m not overly fussy about the results.) Since the two blends are the same except for fiber content, I had this idea to weave a twill block pattern with one in the warp and one in the weft. When you do this with two colors, you get some blocks more the warp color and others more the weft color. If the colors contrast enough, you get this shimmery op-art sort of effect.

The two yarns would differ only in sheen, the silk being reflective and the Merino matte. I haven’t tried anything like this before but the theory makes sense. At any rate, it should make nice fabric. It will be singles, and I’ll almost certainly do one with S twist and the other with Z. I’m not sure which, however, so I want to experiment with twist direction in another fiber first. I bought some discount (because it had some bad spots) brown Blue Faced Leicester top a few weeks ago for exactly that purpose.

The diz experiment went well, although I need to do something about getting a better diz. The plastic jug is ok for thick stuff but that’s about it. It’s too soft, so the hole gets larger as you go. Not good. I tried using a button, which was better, but it’s hard to work with. Not only is it just difficult to hold, but since it’s so small I end up grabbing fibers on the other side when I’m not supposed to. Believe it or not, the hole is too large as well. Time to go shopping, or maybe something will turn up at a thrift store or random junk pile. You never know.

More fiber washing this morning, and let me tell you I’m liking this sunshine thing. Summer in San Francisco is not known for sunny days, but we live on the other side of the city from the fog-inducing ocean. Oh it gets over here often enough, but it’s not so much that we live in perpetual pea soup like some parts of the city. And we now have a nice big back courtyard that gets sun. After being in the basement for so long I’m just astounded that I can sit here with the windows open (We have windows! And they open to actual outside!) and it’s just nice. Not too hot, not too cold, and a pleasant breeze. The Merino I scoured this morning is already almost dry. (And my neighbors occasionally wander by wondering what that weird object with the dead rats inside is. Good thing nobody actually asked, as I can’t explain much farther than “Es la lana.”)

The past couple days have been sunny and warm, perfect fleece washing weather. Unfortunately, they have also been a bit windy, which makes drying fleece outside a problem. I recently found the solution at a local Cheap Stuff From China store, of which there are many all over San Francisco. There was the “Infant Sleeping Tent,” a pop-up mesh tent of sorts. The label has some of the worst Engrish I’ve seen in a while (“To protect baby form bitting by mosquitoes and files” is only a sample) but it’s actually a handy little thing. Don’t know that I’d trust it for use with actual babies, but that’s not my problem. I don’t even remember what I paid for it but I’m going to go back for more. It might have been a buck but certainly not much more. Here’s a picture:

The fleece in there is some of what I got from Forest Home Farms annual shearing party in San Ramon a couple weeks ago. East Bay Mystery Sheep at it’s finest. It’s short and full of kemp but not too dirty. It might be a lamb because it has that curly tip like first fleeces tend to have and it’s fairly soft. From the spongy feel there is obviously some down breed in there (Suffolk?) and a bit of California Red. I figured I’d use it to mess around with some drum carder experiments, although at this point I think it’s getting tossed in the I’ll Card It All Together Eventually pile. There’s a lot of kemp in there and the red hair is not high on my list either.