Here you are, gentle readers, the dyed mohair spun up as a single:
It’s a thick and thin single that averages about worsted weight (which let me tell you, is really thick for me; I had to consciously tell my foot to treadle extremely s-l-o-w-l-y) and now I want to knit it up into something, despite the fact that it’s only 1 oz and about twenty yards long and very, erm, energized. I’m soaking it to set the twist right now. I spun it yesterday after I got up from my two-hour nap. (I then proceeded to fall asleep right after the boy went to bed at 7:30 and not wake up till 6:30 this morning, so evidently the nap didn’t negatively impact my night, for which I am deeply grateful.)
Someone asked me what I was going to do with all these tiny skeins, and the answer is: nothing. I’m going to keep them in a box with labels tied to them identifying the fibre, the speeds used to spin and ply, the weight and yardage, and the date. They’re samples. They’re not big enough to do much of anything with, but I didn’t spin them with a project in mind, or to stash them against a future project, or for any goal other than having the experience of trying something to see what happens. I’m playing with new fibres, or new speeds, or dye jobs, or new grists. It’s a way of experimenting without committing a bunch of time and money to something that might ultimately fail. And with these smallish experiments under my belt, I’ll be able to apply the skills I’m learning (mohair, long-draw, silk, bamboo, semi-worsted) to larger projects in the future without losing investment.
What I want to know is if the basic Louet line is all about bulky to medium weight yarns and I’m pulling off fingering to laceweight as my default, what the heck would I manage to do with the high-speed flyer or the faster wheels? Spin fingering to laceweight a lot faster is the answer, I suspect, but my point is basically that these supposedly slow wheels are capable of a lot more than those who don’t use them give them credit for. (Also, maybe if I spin with the brake band all the way on I’ll get thicker yarns. I had the brake band on about one-third of the way for this single so that the yarn would actually draw onto the bobbin and I wouldn’t put as much twist into it.)
I’m starting to think I should have got my aran-weight sweater yarn while the getting was good.
You want your Aran weight yarn as a single? That could be problematic, yes, heh. But if you’re okay with plied then it shouldn’t be a problem.
Plied yarn is fine. But if it’s a 10-ply, we’re gonna have problems with weight, I think. ;)
Hee! Yeah. Also with feeding it through the
fishing lineyarn meter.I so don’t pay attention to the number of plies thing. It’s a commercial yarn classification, not handspun, thank goodness. (Although I bet I could make a six-ply Aran…)
Yeah, the number of plies doesn’t worry me at all. The WPI is the important thing for the project type/gauge.
(By ‘problems with weight’ I meant finished weight of the sweater with a handspun ten-ply, not problems with the yarn weight. If that makes any sense.)
It does. A pound of sweater is a pound of sweater, but as we have seen, weight and yardage are variable, especially concerning the type of draw one uses to spin it. More air in the yarn = lighter sweater.
I haven’t been able to comment for the last couple of days, because t! has been using the Mac pretty much constantly, and your comment box doesn’t show up on my PC (which is running a positively ancient version of Explorer – lots of things don’t show up for me).
Anyway, this yarn sample is absolutely gorgeous! I adore the colourway and I can’t wait to see it in person. If I were you I’d be very tempted to knit it into a swatch just to see what happens, take a picture, and then frog it back.
I’m halfway tempted to ask you to spin up a couple of hundred yards of laceweight from my pound of mohair and dye it these colours so that I can abandon the pale green bamboo yarn I’m currently using for my mum’s one-row lace scarf in mid-project, and start again in this colourway of mohair.
I’m going to restrain myself, however, because neither of us need the extra stress of a new project right now (especially considering how far behind I am on Baba’s Christmas lap-quilt *sigh*).
But I think it’s really, really, really lovely, and I can’t wait until we have time to start playing properly with the mohair and dyes, etc. I’m full of “what would happen if…” questions which will also have to wait.
I’m so glad you like it! The colours are fading a bit more in the twist-setting bath (green, you are my bane), but they’re still really pretty.
You know, I have no problem dyeing about 2 oz of your mohair and doing it up as a two-ply laceweight for you; you’d probably get about 150 yards from it. It would only take a week, and I could fit it in with no problem right now because I don’t have a spinning project on the go. You probably didn’t need to hear that, though. :)
But… but Jan! The green bamboo you’re using for that scarf is GORGEOUS! I have been all admiration for it since I saw the picture.
Just trying to comment with Firefox. Which is still wonky, but seems to work.
YAY! Yeah, the comment box does odd things, but this is the only template that actually functions semi-normally so I keep it, despite its boringness.