Spinning Into Summer

It’s hard to believe that over two months have gone by since my last post. Summer is in full swing here and these warm, sunny days are such a treat. I love seeing the mountains covered in green, and every day there is something new blooming in our yard. As we approach the Solstice, we are greeted in the early morning by the sound of hundreds of birds singing for a new day, and we are put to sleep by thousands of fireflies twinkling in the mountains. This really is the most magical place to be.

We just enjoyed a week-long visit from one of Kyle’s children and next week my sister is coming down from Minnesota to spend a week with us, so we have a full calendar with visitors! But I can’t blame anybody for wanting to visit the mountains in June. It is a perfect time to be here. I’m just trying not to think about the 174 work emails waiting in my inbox after I spent the past week relaxing in a hammock and searching for critters in the creek.

My friend Katie is coming over tomorrow evening for a spinning night and I am really looking forward to her company and spending several hours processing wool for spinning and playing around with different breeds. Spinning has been at the forefront of my crafting lately and I am excited to keep that momentum going. I have a lot of spinning to share since my last post, too.

I finished three spinning projects that I have had in the works and was excited to finally see some finished skeins after so long without completing anything. The front bobbin above is the project I have had on my Kromski wheel since the end of 2020. This was some of the thinnest yarn I have spun (which I will not be doing again anytime soon). I chain-plied the single to create a 3-ply yarn which kept the color progression intact and ended up with roughly 732 yards out of 4oz of BFL wool. I am using this yarn to knit socks and even as a 3-ply it is still a bit thinner than I intended, but it is coming out nicely. I will share photos of the socks-in-progress in a later post. I love that chain-plying allowed me to create a sort of self-striping yarn.

Next we have the beautiful “River Rock” colorway of BFL/silk I was spinning on my drop spindle. After spinning 2 ounces, I wound it onto a bobbin, then spun the other two ounces on my spindle.

After plying these together to create a 2-ply yarn, I have about 570 yards of gorgeous, lustrous fingering-weight yarn. This fiber really was some of the most enjoyable I have ever spun. If you ever want to treat yourself, I highly recommend checking out what Crafted By Locals has to offer.

Last in the lineup is the 4oz. of mystery BFL I found in my stash that I spun up very quickly to get acquainted with my new electric spinning wheel. I turned this into a 3-ply yarn and ended up with about 176 yards. I would consider this an aran or chunky-weight yarn which is not what I usually spin or knit, but it was a fun quick project, inconsistencies and all.

After I finished these projects, I was eager to get started on my next spin before too long. I picked out a braid of hand-dyed merino tweed that I purchased from a seller on Etsy and was really excited to get started – I love tweed yarns and thought it would be fun to spin my own.

I can’t even begin to tell you how disappointed I was, then, to discover that this fiber was practically unspinnable. The fiber was so weak that it kept breaking into shorter and shorter pieces and any yarn I managed to spin couldn’t withstand the tension of the spinning wheel and kept snapping. After only a few yards, I gave up and threw the whole thing in the trash. It wasn’t worth my time fighting with this fiber and even if I had managed to create yarn, it wouldn’t have held up to the abrasion of everyday wear once knitted. Not to be disheartened, I went stash diving once again to find some more enjoyable fiber to spin and came out with a lovely braid of 75% BFL wool/25% tussah silk from Woolgatherings.

I have half of this spun up now and it has been an enjoyable project to have on hand. Fiber often gets compacted during dyeing/packaging, so I usually pre-draft my wool to get it ready for spinning. This just loosens it up a bit, allows it to expand, and makes the spinning easier. Look at the difference here between two ounces of this fiber before pre-drafting (bottom) and after (top)! It always amazes me how much it can expand with just a bit of coaxing.

I have plenty more spinning, knitting, weaving and embroidery to share so hopefully I won’t be away for two more months. In the meantime, I hope you are enjoying some warmer weather and spending time out in the sun. I know I am!