Supercoil Chiengora

Weekends don't usually afford me much time to spin. But this being a holiday Monday, I carved out a wee bit of time to try making supercoil yarn with nothing but the 2 fibers from Project Spinway's Challenge 1. That's one of the stipulations for the competition - that we use no other materials than the two items chosen blindly from our stash.

I started with a 2ply yarn blended from an equal mix of the Romney and "Bruno" that I posted on Sunday (it's the last sample). Then I carded up a handful of "Bruno" and spun a thick and thin, lumpy, bumpy single. Following various hints on youtube I produced this:



Bruno Supercoil Yarn!

I think it's quite exciting.

A Few Samples

I spent some time spinning little samples for Project Spinway.

First up: fingering weight yarn with one ply Romney and one ply "Bruno" I was surprised how this sample knitted up. I'm not usually a fan of how yarns that have one dark and one light ply knit up, but this one knitted up to be something I don't not like.


Second: light fingering weight 2ply in a 50/50 Romney/"Bruno" blend. I love this yarn and the sample. It has lovely drape and a wonderful halo from the chiengora.


Third: heavy fingering weight yarn 3ply in a 50/50 Romney/"Bruno" blend. Again a wonderful halo to the knitted swatch. I think I would use larger needles, but I had only brought one set with me to swatch my mini-skeins.


Fourth: heavy fingering weight, maybe closer to sport weight, 3 ply. I n-plyed this yarn to maintain the graduation from Romney to "Bruno". To make this yarn I carded up five little fluff piles ranging from all Romney, 75/25, 50/50, 25/75 to all "Bruno". Knit up on 2.75mm needles, this is my favorite sample of all of them. Since I was only sampling, I eyeballed the ratios. If I decide to make a full-sized skein like this, I would use my scale for greater accuracy and repeatability.


And lastly: a high twist 2ply in a 50/50 Romney/"Bruno" blend, suitable (maybe?) as a core for supercoils or as the warp on my rigid heddle. The supercoil attempt will happen within the next few days...

Bigger and with More Gray

I've washed my raw Romney for Project Spinway. As usual it seems like I have way more fiber now that it's been washed. And it's not nearly as brown as I had thought it would be - lots more gray - and lighter in color too that the raw fiber.



I washed it twice in a sink full of very hot water and a squirt of dish detergent. Both times the water was very brown - the first time like very very strong black coffee - but not nearly as appealling to the sense of smell. Then I rinsed several times in warm water until the water was clear.

It's been so humid here that it was taking forever to dry so I popped it in my convection oven at it's very lowest setting (about 150 degrees F) for a few hours. It's still the wee-est bit damp.

I've been carding bits of the Romney and Bruno and making litte sample skeins to determine what I want to do for this "Stash-down With a Purpose" Challenge.

Sample skeins and knitted swatch pics in a few days!!!

Project Spinway - Challenge 1

If you're familiar with Project Runway, you might understand the Spin-a-long I'm part of better than me. I've watched part of one episode.

Over in Natchwoolie's Ravelry Group, she's running a Project Spinway competition. Should be loads of fun and a good way to spin up some stash.

Challenge 1 is Surprise Stash Down with a Purpose. Go here for more details.

(I have no idea why this pic is rotated)

I was going to wait for my kids to wake up so they could do a blind grab from my stash for me, but I wanted to start right away. After setting aside a few special bags of fluff that are earmarked for other things, I numbered all my bags that had about 4oz in them and used a random number generator to pick two.



And here are the two bags that correspond to the randomly generated numbers.



A 4oz bag of raw Romney (Multi Romney Darks)from Natchwoolie's Sushi Club and approximately 4oz of Newfoundland Dog fur from Bruno.

Should be exciting! Even though I don't know yet what I'm going to do with these two.

Bruno Yarn

The Bruno yarn is done. I plied it on Sunday evening and blocked it. It was dry enough to twist up into a nice skein by lunch time. So here's a little portrait!
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Project Specs:
Fibre Source: Bruno (a friend's Newfie Dog)

Wheel: Ashford Traditional

Fibre Prep: Hand carded rolags

Singles: spun woolen

Yarn: 3 ply bulky, navajo plied, 72grams, 96 yards

Date Started: April 16, 2009
Date Finished: April 20, 2009

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"Say hello to Bruno!"

A friend of mine has a huge Newfie dog named Bruno. He's such a sweetie - and a real gentle giant. She's been wanting to learn to spin so she could make yarn from his brushings, but has found so little time. She did give me a big Ziploc full of fur though!

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"Hi Bruno!"

This has already been washed and dried and probably about 1/4 of it has already been spun.

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I was very concerned about it felting when I washed it, but knew I needed to since the doggy smell (although not that strong) was still too much for me, so I wrapped it loosely in muslin fabric before washing it in the kitchen sink. I ran cool to lukewarm water in the sink and used a bit of Palmolive Cucumber Melon scent. Once the since was full, I gently set my muslin parcel in the water and submerged it. I let it sit for about 5 or 10 minutes, and gently lifted it out. I repeated that 3 times, using fresh water and soap each time. Then I used the same process to rinse, (just left out the soap) until the water didn’t seem soapy any more. I let the “parcel” drain for about 30 minutes in the sink and then wrapped it in a towel and pressed more water out. I let the fur dry over night.

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I've been handcarding one rolag at a time and then spinning it up. This is the first time using the handcards that the woman threw in with the deal when I bought my used Ashford Traditional last summer. I think I'm starting to get the hang of it, although what I'm doing still doesn't quite look like the video on Joy of Handspinning that I'm learning off of.

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And here's some of the singles on my wheel. I'm thinking of doing a 3 ply and am spinning my singles so that I'll end up with a worsted weight.

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This is a tiny 2 ply sample skein that I spun up before I washed the fur. Very soft and fluffy! I heart Bruno-yarn.

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