Tour de Fleece 2016 day 5

Here we are at day 5 already. There doesn't look much on this bobbin but it's drawing out very fine. Not what I intended but I'm going with it - it may be the finest I've spun. And it's fun.

I decided to use the Tour de Fleece spinning time to spin this fleece. It came from Fibre East last year. A Shetland fleece in a nice colour, good locks, still in grease but very clean.

 I decided to use a technique I was taught on my first spinning lesson. It involves holding each lock, combing with a dog-comb, turning the lock around and combing the other end. I prefer the dog-comb to a flick-carder. The result is a well-separated and parallel lock.

It's not fast work, I'm combing as I go, but this isn't a race!!

Spinzilla Team HSN UK Visit to wool processing mill

From a crafter's perspective, it's fascinating to see the familiar scouring and combing processes happen on an industrial scale. It's also heartening to see a large business working so ethically. They're proud of their environmental credentials, with all waste (dirt, grease, noils) going off to serve useful purposes elsewhere.

Friday's visit to Haworth Scouring Co was a 'spin-off' event from last year's Spinzilla.

The first year that the yardage competition was open worldwide (2014) I spun 'rogue' because there was no UK team. For 2015's event I registered a UK team linked to Hand Spinning News. What happened next blew me away. The team filled up within a couple of days (25 spinners max). There was such a spirit between team members during a gruelling week's spinning (the most active team forum by a long margin) and we ended up coming seventh out of around 70 teams worldwide, all of us meeting the 'monster mile' and a grand total of 146,336 yards or 83.15 miles.

Martin Curtis of Curtis Wools Direct / Haworth Scouring Co sponsored our effort by providing real Shetland top for us to spin,

He very kindly also offered us a tour of his mill. Besides being a fascinating day, it was the first time that many team members had met in person!

We saw fleeces being opened up, shaken out and then being passed through a number of tanks of detergent.

The mill also has a combing plant, turning the snowy-clean fleece into beautiful squishy top for spinning. I gather that most of this goes to the carpet industry; wool carpet being more environmentally-friendly, healthy, comfortable, non-compacting and not necesarily more expensive than synthetic fibres. Some of the wool goes to make garments and the noils (shorter fibres) into bedding.

Longdrawjames and Freyalyn testing the wool by twisting small amounts between their fingers. There was a funny moment when Martin did the same and looked around expectantly. "Usually when I do this, people are impressed", he said "...but you lot being hand spinners, I can see that you're not...."

potamousse's other half took this excellent picture of the team, or most of those that were present, with our Spinzilla team pinnies.

We had the opportunity to buy some real Shetland top and other fibres. I'd gone intending to buy more of the white to spin, dye and weave into a tartan blanket-scarf. However, after seeing how the natural fibres look when woven, I chose a selection of natural colours.

For the genuine 'real Shetland', contact Martin's son Adam of the Real Shetland Company. They're not really geared up to supply smaller amounts for hand spinning, but depending on what you want, Adam may be able to help or to pass you onto a retailer.

English combs and worsted preparation

I recently managed to buy a set of what I believe are Martin Hills combs. A couple of weekends away have meant that it took a while before I was able to watch this series of four videos and then set about some washed fleece (risking life and limb in the process, those tines really are huge and sharp)

You'd expect these mahoosive combs would eat through fleece in no time, but it took much longer than expected. In her videos, Amanda makes half a dozen passes of the combs, pulling out a rough roving half way through. I'd spun some of the same fleece previously using mini-combs which were even slower work and I don't think I took anything like as much trouble.

But when you spin, you discover that the time spent has been an investment. My roving, pulled through a diz, was already fairly thin. The combs leave you with the best and longest fibres and they're very well aligned. I had to do very little work, it actually felt like cheating! With the high-speed kit on and treadling furiously I got through half a dozen of my painstakingly-prepared nests in the time it took to listen to Duke by Genesis.

The result is very fine and even. So fine I may make a 3-ply. This zwartbles wool is very bouncy and when plied it springs out into a very squishy yarn. I can't wait to have it finished, but it's going to take more patient hours with the combs.

combing for the first time

This week has seen me using wool combs for the first time and some of the nicest and most consistent yarn I've made so far.

The gauge is not only spot on, but I've been experimenting with colours. The black is the zwartbles fleece that I've been selling. I thought the yarn would be great for the trekking sock pattern in the background, but I've found that wool on its own wears quickly, so the middle grey section is with the addition of some mohair (I heard someone refer to this as 'nature's nylon' this week) and the top section is some brown shetland, again combed and mixed at the same time with some mohair. The decision is to make the socks using mostly the black zwart with the brown shetland mix as contrast colour / heel & toe.

So let's do this story backwards. I'm very proud of the yarn. Combing takes out shorter or tangled fibres leaving you with the best fibres arranged nice and parallel. (Known as worsted preparation.) Fabulous to spin. In my case there's a little grease left in the wool which also helps.

Short draw keeps the fibres straight and even. In this case quite a long short-draw worked well because the fibres are nice and long. With the combed wool drafting like a dream I switched to the faster ratio and have been working very quickly.

This pair of mini-combs has been knocking about here for a long time but drum carding makes such short work of fleece that I've not tried them before now. With lots of fleece around, curiosity got the better of me. Even with these small combs, I found that you can work with quite a few locks at a time.

You work with the empty comb at right angles to the static one and a sweeping motion. This transfers the long fibres onto the second comb leaving the rubbish on the first one which you remove. I've been repeating 4 - 6 times.

It pulls off the comb into a sliver which is ready to spin.

I love combing and am now in the market for a grown-up sized secondhand pair - if you can help, contact me!