Friday, January 4, 2013

Experiments in Spinning: Wensleydale

So I decided a while back that I would try and expand my spinning repertoire, since I can't just sit around and spin BFL all the time.  I do not plan on discussing the debacle that ensued with the 2 oz. of camel I bought and promptly mangled into oblivion.  ;)

I got this Louet Wensleydale several months ago from Nomad Yarns, since it has a long staple, and I usually prefer that to a shorter length...I was a little surprised at the amount of VM in the roving, since it seemed to be generally well-processed.  There wasn't a LOT, but what was present were GIANT chunks.  There were also quite a number of big black guardhairs, which seemed rather odd.

The singles were a bit overtwisted (entirely my fault):




But I figured it would be fine during plying, and any additional twist issues would come out during washing and setting the twist.

The roving itself was really fuzzy...I like to predraft quite a bit, and split my roving up in preparation for spinning, but it got messy...Very messy.



Note To Self: Don't spin new roving while wearing a black shirt.  ;)

Plying ended up being a total PITA--the singles were way more overtwisted than I thought, and what I fondly believed would become a worsted-weight yarn is definitely chunky-to-bulky weight:




I'd like to try Wensleydale again, I think, with a non-overtwisted singles this time, or maybe something with a Wensleydale blend.  But not for a while...  :/


2 comments:

  1. There is definitely something to be said for sticking to what you know will work for you! Of course we all do want to try new things--but we sorta have to expect a mess the first few times! (And no, I still don't want to learn to spin, and this post has not changed my mind!)

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  2. You say "Wensleydale" and my brain says "Cheese, Gromit!"

    Cheese (string cheese notwithstanding) would be really hard to spin...

    (Why does Blogspot think I'm "unknown" even when I log in w/ my Google account??)

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