Dusting off the wheel

Continuing last weekend’s mission to reclaim some recreational time, I dusted off the spinning wheel last night so that I could take it to the Guild today. And when I say “dusted off” I mean got out a cloth and a bucket and removed a thick layer of grime… It’s been a while. When I looked in my stash for something to spin I was horrified by how deep the mine of unspun fibre actually is. When did I buy all that? And when did I think I was going to spin it? I had to stop half way down the pile as it was too unsettling. Anyway, I picked out a small bag of something labelled “Llama, silk & wool” (no indication of what the wool is). I hadn’t got on very well with it when I first bought it. The material in the bag consists of dense clumps with fine hairs sticking out.

Opened up with the hand carders, it looks like this:

I’m not sure quite what’s what, but as well as the hair – which I presume is llama guard hair – there are liitle neps and wee clumps that might be silk noils. The mass of the fibre is very fine and short. Originally I had tried to spin a ‘normal’ yarn with it, but got frustrated at the difficulties it gave me. One of the reasons it was abandoned in the fibre stash!

This time I decided to relax and let it take shape in its own way. Since relaxation for me does not extend to picking out guard hairs or doing elaborate fibre preparation, I just loosened it up with the hand cards and used a long draw to spin it, letting it clump or not as it pleased. A little plied sample was surprisingly appealing.

Approaching it without any quality control made for very rapid progress and by the end of the Guild meeting I had this.

It was fun to imagine what I might do with it, though I am probably getting ahead of myself. One bobbin doth not a weaving make. The yarn is soft and light, but with those guard hairs you certainly wouldn’t want to wear it. For now I shall just enjoy the spinning and the dreaming.

“Dusting off the wheel” was posted by Cally on 7 June 2014 at http://callybooker.co.uk