The wheel was humming last week. My spinning is improving and I tried plying for the first time. All but one skein of the yarn pictured above was spun last week. The yarn on the far right was spun when I first set up the wheel last month. Can you see the improvement? I can and it's encouraging.
I enjoyed plying. My wheel has a lazy kate on board, but I took the advice of Patsy Zawistoski and placed my bobbins in two dishpans on the floor on either side of me. The weight of the bobbins helped to tension the yarn as I plied it. The dishpans kept the bobbins corralled. The yarn had been spun for several days and I didn't have much trouble keeping everything under control.
I thought about leaving the yarn I had spun back in December as a single, but when I saw how nicely plying balances out inconsistent spinning, I decided to give it a try. I had already skeined it up however, so I put it on the swift and wound it into a center pull ball. I then plied from both ends. This worked well also.
The only trouble I ran into was when I decided to spin up the last of this particular roving and ply it that same day. There was just enough to fill one bobbin, so I plied from a center pull ball. It was difficult to work with fresh off the bobbin like that. The ends kept twisting together and I broke the yarn in a few places where I hadn't spun it tight enough. I think next time I will let it rest a few days before I ply.
I'm finding this learning process to be so much fun!
NEW FIBER
One of John's coworkers, Amy, gifted me with these two balls of roving. I was very excited when he came home with them. It was a complete surprise. Amy said she has a whole garbage bag of roving that her mother gave her and she wanted to share some of it with me. Her mom used to do a lot of crafting and would use the roving for hair and beards on dolls that she would make. She bought the roving from a woman in Oakland, Illinois who raised her own sheep. I'm not sure what kind of the sheep this wool is from. All of the tags that came with the roving are missing now, except for one that said the wool was from Bessie.
Have fun with Bessie's wool! :-)
ReplyDeleteYour spinning looks fabulous. I prefer putting my bobbins in a pan beside the chair, too. It has worked better than the LK for the most part.
It looks great, Tracey! It looks like you are having a lot of fun. What a great gift of roving, it's really pretty stuff.
ReplyDeleteWow! That's a huge difference in such a short amount of time. I do have to admit that I loved the thick/thin yarn you spun at first; so organic.
ReplyDeleteI like it! How nice to get a gift of roving! Bessie, how cute!
ReplyDeleteI can see the progress! I think your yarn looks great.
ReplyDeleteWow! You're doing wonderfully, congratulations :)
ReplyDeleteYour spinning looks great. I saved my first skein so that I could look back and get a good laugh. You should save yours too so that you can see your progress a year from now. Did you know that you can enter your yarn in the state fair? It would be in the beginnner catergory. You look like you are well on your way to being a great spinner. The roving looks wonderful. I love the colors. Try blending colors and see what you get. It's so fun to see the results.
ReplyDeleteYes, I do see improvement, and yes it IS encouraging! I just got a wheel recently, too...but I'd become a bit discouraged. Thanks for reminding that what I need to do is just keep practicing.
ReplyDeleteYour spinning is looking great! I knew you would be a natural ;o)
ReplyDeleteYour yarn looks great! How nice to get unexpected rovings to play with.
ReplyDeleteI like your spinning (and the rest of your blog).
ReplyDeleteI learned something new...like letting your spinning 'rest' before plying.
I still have my first ball of 2-ply colored wool.
If I had read your info on placing the bobbins in dishpans, I would have enjoyed the plying more. :)
Thank you for sharing.