With the Tour De Fleece this year, I wanted to join in, in some way. What better way than to explore those 25g balls of fibre purchased from Adelaide Walker at the Cumbrian Wool Gathering. It would be rude not to start with the bright orange bamboo tops (of which I had two).
Ashamed to say, it’s been several months since I did any spinning before picking up the bamboo tops, so not only am I still a beginner, I was also quite rusty. Consistency had gone out the window and the different staple length to what I had learned on completely threw me.
Any basic mistake I could make, I made. The machine pulled the Fiber out my hands multiple times because I kept failing to feed in enough fibre, it went from chunky down to lace and back, it was over spun in places and under spun in others, honestly it was a really messy spin. BUT this was the longest I had sat and spun for and by the end of it I was getting back to being a semi-competent beginner. In about 3 sittings throughout the day, several long streams and one late night I had spun both of the 25g bamboo tops onto one bobbin (shoutout to the eew nano2 it handles more than you think it can!) I almost stopped before I had finished the fibre, but decided to keep going to see if I could.
After all that it was well and truly bed time!
Next day I was back and ready to ply. Now please bear in mind this is only the third time I have plied yarn. The first time was combining the first two bobbins, one green one white, (while a little out of order, a post on that is coming!) The second was learning how to chain ply a couple of days before on my third bobbin which was started at the beginning of the year containing natural wool. (A post on that skein will be coming as well when I dive into the world of natural dying.) To be honest, this time the chain ply went much better than the first attempt. Partly because I had figured out how to make a decent makeshift lazy Kate, partly because I understood the method better.
Personally, my preference is absolutely chain plying for several reasons. 1. You can do it straight from one bobbin. 2. It makes for a nice looking yarn. 3. If your spinning isn’t that consistent, it can help to even it out a little. As it was, this finished Skein has sport through to chunky in it, so it’s being called an art yarn. Was totally on purpose honest!
Finally, it was time to pull the yarn off the bobbin and onto the niddy noddy to create the skein, and what a Skein! It’s so soft! There really is something a little bit magical about these plant fibres and how soft they are.
So what could be improved next time? Well almost everything! It would be nice to buy some more and try again understanding the staple length better. This time focusing on consistency of weight to try and get a more even end product yarn. More practice at chain plying would help too and getting the right amount of twist into it. Both at the spinning and the plying stages. This time though, I did learn that depending on the weight of the yarn depends how much twist it needs, but not yet figured out how much that is. To be perfectly transparent, there is sections which have too much and sections which have too little. Practice makes perfect and all that. However, for a beginner weekend project, I could have done far worse and I do have a useable yarn at the end of it too!
Honestly, looking forward to washing and setting and using this skein. Ideas on what I can make out of 50g of bamboo yarn would be welcome!
GeekySquidoo 