Even though I'm not keeping up with the blogging, I am keeping up with the spinning. My goal for this Tour de Fleece was to spin and swatch samples for an entirely handspun sweater. Here's the polworth fleece I have from Rovings. It did come from my stash (I bought it in October 2003 - so it's well aged). There is the tiniest bit of veg matter in it. Just enough so that it's fun picking it out - not a nuisance.
I'm doing virtually no pre-drafting. Even though this stuff has been hanging around for over 4 years, there's been no compaction. The one problem I came across is that it's in the bag upside down. It spins easier from the other side. Rather than dump it out and re-package the whole thing, I've been grabbing a couple of armfuls and tearing it off from the larger supply. I flip it around and spin from the other end - dreamy. If you've never purchased from Rovings, go now. Get some of the natural colors and see what I mean.
One of the reasons this roving got put on a shelf was because it was tricky to spin. A couple of years ago, I didn't have the confidence that I could make it into a beautiful yarn, so I stopped. The fleece wants to be spun on the fine side and it really likes the long draw style. My usual style is inch-worm. I spin inch-worm mostly because I can lean back on the couch and keep the fiber supply to my left and the yarn from the wheel right in front of me. With the long draw, I need to sit more forward and keep my arms free-swinging. It's a little more work, but the results are very nice. What's on the bobbin is essentially a day and a half of watching the Tour de France.
So, I spun up a small sample skein and using the Judith MacKenzie McCuin method, menaced it with a kitchen sink plunger. I couldn't quite remember how to do it, so I filled a sink with hot, hot water from the faucet and added a little soap. The other sink got half filled with cold water. I dropped in the skein and went to town. Then I switched it into the cold water and swished it a little. Then, back into the hot water for more plunging. A final rinse in the cold and a squeeze in a towel.
This morning - it's gorgeous. It is a light, springy yarn that has lost much of its fuzziness. Without knitting it into a swatch, it's hard to tell what it will do, but I am very happy with this result. Now it's on to more spinning and a larger skein. I want to have a serious supply of plied yarn before the end of the race. It's a good thing the mountain coverage was so long this morning - I have a lot to do!
(You can click on any of the pictures to make them bigger.)
