Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Spinning mohair

Yesterday was pretty busy what with one thing and another and I didn't even think about posting on my blog. In fact I didn't realise I'd missed a day until I checked just now. My knitting is pretty uninteresting at the moment. I am still working away at my scarf but it is really the only thing on the needles at the moment. It should be done in the next couple of days, though. After the scarf is done there are sweaters and socks waiting to be knit.

I spent Sunday playing with my wheel. I've had a 50 gram braid of kid mohair dyed by Fleece Artist sitting around since the KW fair last year. Since most of my other available fleece is white or brown and I felt like playing with colour the mohair was a natural choice. I spun it into the fine singles that I favour and then decided to ply it to something else. I happened to have a bobbin of white Blue Faced Leicester sitting around so I pressed it into service.

I was aiming for a fingering weight and the 2 ply wasn't going to be thick enough so I tried adding a bit more twist and the plying the two two plies together to get a 4 ply cabled yarn.

Unfortunately I didn't add enough twist and the resulting yarn was too loose. Today I unplied the 4 ply, added more twist to the pair of 2 plies and then spun them back together. I am much happier with the yarn the second time round.

I used the full 50 grams of mohair and an unknown amount of BFL and got about 130 yards of yarn. I think I will spin up more plain BFL and make some socks.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

That looks beautiful! I really admire your ability to spin. I haven't tried it and it seems so complicated to me. You, however seem to do it with ease. Congrats on some beautiful yarn! :D Now what are you going to knit with it? :D

heavenlyevil said...

I agree. That is very beautiful.

Though I thought it was funny that you said, "Today I unplied the 4 ply, added more twist to the pair of 2 plies and then spun them back together" as if that took all of 5 minutes.

I bet those will be amazing socks if you do go that route.

Anonymous said...

Your handspun is really beautiful! Love the subtle color.