First Yarn Batch

Well, I have finished three skeins of yarn and it is time to start on painting number four.

By the way, I took some video and was uploading it to youtube while I made my last post and completely forgot about them.  They take so long to upload.  LOL!  It took five hours for the twelve minute video to upload.  So, I made my post and went to bed.  They are on my video page, if you are interested.

So, I filled one bobbin with black alpaca, one bobbin with white wool, and one with both, a little black and a little white, no particular amount of each as I went.  It worked out rather evenly, though, but I wanted it to be very random.

The three bobbins of singles were, in theory, to make three bobbins of three-ply once I got it plied.  Well, I ran out of the mix after the second spool of three-ply and spun some more of that.  I thought I would finish that last spool easily, but when I was about 75% done I ran out of white, so I used a ball of old single that I had spun from the same fleece.  I think I had done it just to test it out.  Well, it worked.

So, the next step is taking the yarn off the bobbin, preferably after it has had a chance to settle while still on the bobbin.  The first two had enough settling time, but the third one I just finished before I started taking them off and winding them on the rockers of my rocking chair.  LOL!  My skeins are not as big as regular ones, but it works for me.

The coffee pot on the floor was holding the little ball of white yarn while I was plying that last bit of the last spool.  When making a skein, I use the wheel to hold the spool, because I can maintain a tension and the spool doesn’t spin wildly and get tangled.  You may notice all the little bits of wool all over the place.  I have even been finding it in my mouth over the last couple of weeks.  It flies everywhere.

This is the fiber that I started with.  The white was a raw fleece, it had not been washed or processed in any way, so it was greasy with lanolin and a little bit dirty, but amazingly clean for a raw fleece.  I carded it before spinning.  The alpaca had been washed and carded by machine into roving.  (I wish I could remember where I got it.  I know I didn’t buy it…)

So, I wrapped the yarn around the rockers, tied it in four spots, and removed the skeins from the rockers.

Then I washed them in hot water with real soap flakes while listening to a Louis L’Amour book, Sackett’s Land, the first in the series (just in case you were wondering what was on my kindle).  Then I rinsed in hot water, first in plain water, second in vinegar water.  Squeezed out most of the water and hung them with weights to set the twist.  They will drip for a while then, hopefully, get dry in a couple of days.

First rinse water before:

First rinse water after:

Well, the plan is to weave cloth from which to make myself an article of clothing.  We will see.  I tried to make some videos of the plying, but it didn’t work out.  I hope you got something out of this post, even if it is just entertainment.

I don’t think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.

— Abraham Lincoln