One of the things that distracted me was the joy of spinning. I'm a little rusty, but after a decade without practice, I think I'm doing pretty well. This is the merino/silk I've been working with:
I've only spun with plain wool before, so the way this stuff draws is totally new to me. I discovered that I'm not talented enough to draw it as I spin, so I pre-draw each length. It's cheating, sort of, but... it has silk in it! Silk has very long, slightly sticky fibers, which makes it difficult to draw. Maybe with a lot of practice I can figure out how to draw and spin at the same time.
Here's the result of my hard work:
My scanner doesn't like this stuff... I'm sorry for the picture quality. The yarn isn't as even as I'd like, and I have a tendency to over-spin sections, but I'm hoping it will ply nicely.
I'm going to be buying some undyed mohair from a fellow chainmailler* in a week or two... I wonder how that's going to spin up, compared to this stuff. I'm also really looking forward to the New York Sheep and Wool Festival (Lucky Charmz, are you going to that? It's in Rhinebeck.), because I get to meet David and spend the small amount of cash I've saved up to get something exotic to play with. *ahem* For Christmas presents. Yes. I promise.
*Chainmaillers make chainmaille (who'd've thunk it?), both for armor/clothing (for LARPing, SCA, and RenFaires, among other things) and jewelry (which is primarily what I do). We take wire, wind it around a rod to make a coil, cut the coil into individual rings, then link those rings together in various formations to make chains and "cloth."
No comments:
Post a Comment