Woodland spinning

n · Woodland spinning

Full story on the blog...

and

370m, 100g, sock-weight-ish, BFL.
n

Auntie Noo

I am completely and totally impressed!!!!!!! - mine still has lumps and bumps in it!!!

pictish

Beautiful!!!! Razz

malteser

Gorgeous. I can't wait to see it knitted up.

knitty, witty, woo

oooohhhh, pretty. I love it!!!!!

Aknita

Natalie, the colours are STUNNING they really are. Very Happy

franney

Yummy!! Have you knitted it into something yet? Very Happy

probablyjane

Glorious!

terri

Good Lord N, thats amazing!!!!!!!!! Beautiful Very Happy

n

Thank you.
I am actually quite gobsmacked at the yardage I got Very Happy

.
As Jane put it on her blog, this is n-spinning (she was Janespinning). I'm not very scientific about it.
I'm not a very experienced spinner, I don't have the time to spend hours and hours doing it, this is the spinning equivalent of knitting lots of stocking stitch.

Someone suggested that this would be a good Forest Canopy, and this would continue the Woodland theme too. If I can bear to let it out of my sight, the Queen of FC's has offered to knit it for me...

n
....I know it's a cop out, but I am not a lace knitter, and I suppose it's not much different from everyone else buying their fibre ready spun....

Fi

N Its a lovely shade it would look great as an FC.

chrissy

N it really is beautiful and I am sure the queen of FC's will do it justice, I shall really look forward to seeing it knit up

craftybernie

Beautiful!!! Very strokeable!

GrannySmith

Wow what a combination of skills, your amazing spinning and our very own FC expert, who is such a beautiful knitter. Very Happy

YarnAddict

Gorgeous yarn. This is why I want a spinning wheel as I want to make gorgeous, beautiful yarns like that. You can get a look from a hanspun yarn that you just cannot get from commercial yarn or even hand dyeing yarn yourself.

gilraen

It is fantastic!! Well done on a different sort of masterpiece! Smile

murdo

How have I missed this??? Gorgeous.

melody yarns

I missed it too - did you spin it yourself n?? Shocked

WOW!!!

How on earth did you get all those twisty bits in it??

n

Thank you.

It takes a while to spin sock weight by hand. I'm not a "production spinner", in the sense that I enjoy the process as much as the destination. This skein took about 5-6 hours for each single, and then about an hour to ply the two together. The singles look thicker than sewing thread, about cobweb weight, they are over twisted, much more than you would expect, because plying is when you spin the wheel in the opposite direction and this takes a lot of the twist back out again.
If I rush it, especially the plying, I just don't get the finish I want.
And then it has to be rinsed, and thoroughly mistreated, dumped unceremonially in very very hot and then cold water a few times. And then wrung out in a towel and thwacked against a worktop - whirl around your head and thwack (!), literally. This agitation causes it to felt slightly and stops the plies splitting when you knit with it, and it also plumps the yarn up. Even if it seems balanced after plying (ie not twisting back on itself) it still gets a good thwacking !
And then I hang it on the aga to dry with a can of baked beans at the bottom for a weight.

I'm not an expert spinner, but I am persistent, it's better to do half an hour a day than five hours at once, but once I've started the plying, I don't stop until it's finished because it needs to be very even.

If I was better at it I'd be able to start and stop... maybe one day.

n

murdo

N...in relation to whipping yarn against worktop....suggest you do it to this in background....last few minutes of vide should give you the idea...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCX54-_9Mmo&feature=related

n

Yup!

You've got it perfectly there.

n

murdo

Tou should knit one of these out of your rovings...felt it and wear it whilst whipping the yarn (pattern is in Folk Hats)
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2107/1496740211_ab0072b916.jpg

ClaireUK

ROFLOL

My Woodland skeins arrived today - along with a Birthday surprise (Thank you n) and I just know I will find myself singing this whilst I am spinning : )

Claire UK

YarnAddict

I'm trying to spin some sock yarn at the moment and it's difficult to judge how thinly to spin the singles and how much twist to put in. My first plyed yarn there wasn't nearly enouhg twist so I've tried ot put in more for the last two lots.

I'm worried about mistreating the yarn during the finishing though in case I ruin it. Confused

n

Anni, you need to give the yarn the same treatment it would get as a skein which it would get if it was a garment.
If you don't and you knit it without giving it "the treatment" then what will happen is that after you have spent hours spinning and MORE hours knitting, it will look fabulous... and then you'll wash it and it will change size, shape and texture, and it won't look fabulous and you'll regret it.

If you read this you can see how unbalanced the yarn looks pre "treatment", and then what happens to it afterwards. She also gives a lot of detail about exactly how to wash the skein.

Don't spin a whole hundred grammes, just do 10g, 2 x 5g singles and try it.
And if you have lots of undyed fibre, use that to experiment with instead of the dyed fibre.

n

YarnAddict

Thank you Natalie. Bit worried about being rough with my yarn. I'll practice on my first plyed yarn as it's rubbish anyway. Laughing