al dente crafting

I’m going for spinning every day and that I have been able to keep up. Spinning for at least an hour before bed. I’m listening to the Dungeon Crawler Carl audiobooks after having red the series and it’s very fun!

Chain-plied my supported spindle project: About 20ish grams of Portuguese Merino.

I'm hopeless at chain-plying without pre-plying, so that's what I did: walked back and forth my room for an hour just winding yarn so I could then ply it on the wheel. Absolute bastard of a task, but I did it in the end. And the yarn is delightful: Light, airy, squishy. About sock-weight, at a guess.

I spun a whopping one (1) gram on this spindle last week, for a total of 6g so far this tdf. but in my defense I was At Work for so many hours the last 5 days. A truly unreasonable number of hours okay. I definitely will not be spinning an ounce on this spindle by the end of tdf but we will see how far I do manage to get.

I finished the first ply of this planned 2ply fractal and resisted the call of the singles. The second ply is now on the wheel. Hopefully I can spin today ply tomorrow? We’ll see.

I am slow and also fiber prep takes so long... buy hey you can apperently go gorilla when washing aplaca, it just won't felt!

the first 50g didn't turn out perfect, I should have added more twist to the singles but it still knits up very nicely! I did some swatches on my knitting machine! It is cool to see how the tension changes the fabric :D

did you know that by the time fallow deer were introduced to the british isles in the eleventh century, drop spindle spinning was already at least an eight thousand year old craft?

it is thought by archaeologists and anthropologists that spinning developed from cordage rolling, where plant fibres and animal sinews would be rolled on the lap. this practice emerged between forty and thirty-four thousand years ago and is still practiced all over the world.

true spinning began with tying fibres to a rock and spinning the rock over ten thousand years ago and quickly developed into the drop spindle which consists of a stick and a whorl (or weight) around nine thousand years ago. the earliest drop spindles tend to be found in the fertile crescent and egypt, though it is not known whether this is where they first developed or where they preserved best.

there are many arguments about when and where the spinning wheel was invented. but when the normans were taking rule of england in the eleventh century, it would be another two hundred years before spinning wheels began to be used there and another three hundred years yet before wheels began to displace drop spindles within the british isles.

I've been on hiatus from this project for a few weeks now while I work on other things, but I am partway through carding and processing the tunis fleece I washed last summer. Not sure yet what I'll end up doing with it, but I'm very pleased with how it's spinning up so far.

Tour de Fleece Day 12: Perendale

Despite what the sample packaging says, the Perendale was developed in New Zealand by a guy named Peren (pictured) by breeding Romney and Cheviot.

It reminds me quite a bit of BFL. Same length and crimp, but slightly coarser (but not by much) and much less lustrous. I was in a mood for something different, so I spun my yarn as a large 2 x 2 cable yarn. I have 8 ounces undyed in my stash from Yarn School years ago. Maybe a couple of poofy hats?

I found undyed white Perendale top and batts at the usual sources, though for less than BFL. World of Wool and Mohair and More carry various dyed batts. The only hand dyed braid I found on Etsy was from an Australian dyer.

References:

Ekarius, C., & Robson, D. (2013). The Field Guide to Fleece: 100 Sheep Breeds & How to Use Their Fibers. North Adams: Storey Publishing, LLC.

Robson, D., & Ekarius, C. (2011). The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook: More Than 200 Fibers, from Animal to Spun Yarn. North Adams: Storey Publishing, LLC.

Smith, B. (2014). The Spinner's Book of Fleece: A Breed-by-Breed Guide to Choosing and Spinning the Perfect Fiber for Every Purpose. North Adams: Storey Publishing, LLC.

Sheep pic (By Massey University - https://massey.recollect.co.nz/nodes/view/308, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=150123810), the rest by me.

Plied the moorland

Honestly? Not a fan of this blend lol. I like to think I’ve got a bit better at designing blends as the biome boxes have gone on though (I regret not saving myself a merino/silk/cashmere. But the colours are very me!

I also started spinning the second of the two batts I got, August Evenings

Also still working on spindle spinning my Woolen Wytch batt (photo from day 1 as I'm in the garden and cba to walk in to the house to takea new photo).

Not spinning quickly but spinning every day which is what I really wanted to achieve!