Friday, May 10, 2013

Fiber Friday: Seasick, three ways

In my excitement to channel Top Chef, I have managed to come up with what my possibly be the most unappealing blog post title ever. I promise it won't be as bad as it sounds, as the Seasick in question is of the fiber variety, not the bodily. Behold:
Seasick
This is Seasick Corriedale, from Hello Yarn, and it was the February 2010 offering. That was back in the days when I was getting a double dose of club fiber, so I had two bags to play with. I spun up the first bag during the Tour de Fleece last year.
Seasick Corriedale (4)
My recent spate of sampling and trying out different ways to spin up colorways for the shop inspired me to split the second bag into two batches. The first half I spun as a standard 2-ply.
Seasick Corriedale (1)
Seasick Corriedale
I like the barberpole, although I'm not sure how it will play out in the knitting (or crocheting). I ended up with approximately 67 yds of floofy aran/bulky weight yarn.

The other half of the bag ran smack into my sudden and burning need to try core spinning. It was not an entirely successful experiment, to say the least!
Seasick Corriedale (3)
I had some mohair core yarn that I got at Ally Pally in 2010 (this experiment has been a long time coming obviously), and I used the miniSpinner to add some extra twist to the core before I started core spinning. I tore the fiber into approximately thumb wide strips and set off.

After a few yards and some fiddling with the miniSpinner, I had two observations: 1) this was going to work better if I predrafted the fiber a bit to really loosen it up, and 2) I would probably do better using the Lendrum, where it was easy to stop and start the wheel, or slow down/speed up without needing my hands. The predrafting part was easy to do, but since I'd started on the miniSpinner, I decided to keep going and use the Lendrum next time.
Seasick Corriedale (2)
You can see that I ended up with a number of spots that are waaaaay over spun - I think using the Lendrum will help with that because I can slow down my treadling when I need to - and the thickness is all over the map. Final yardage: 35 yds of more-or-less bulky, fairly non-elastic yarn.

Here are the three versions of Seasick all together:
Seasick Corriedale (5)
They are all in the heavy aran-bulky weight range, so I guess I could get really creative and use them all together in something...any ideas?

3 comments:

Fluffykira said...

Very cool. Do you weave? That would be a great way to use all of them!

Alli said...

Beautiful! I'm in awe of your spinning abilities, as always! I also agree with Fluffykira that weaving them all together would be incredibly creative and gorgeous. Go for it!

porpoise said...

Fluffykira - you are a genius! I do weave, and your idea to use them all together is a great one. Now I just have to figure out how to use them to best advantage...my current idea is to warp with the blue and yellow in stripes, then weave with the other three, doing a brown stripe at either end, and the others as inspiration strikes.

But I could also warp with the marled 2-ply...hmm. This is going to take some thinking! Thanks for the suggestion.