Spindle spinning silk hankies / mawatas

One of my many purchases from Wonderwool Wales 2018 was this beautiful silk from Sealy MacWheely. I only bought a small pack but it goes a long way, Sealy had a scarf on display made from one of these packs.

The silk is in the form of hankies / mawata. You separate the thin layers (each made from a single cocoon, which in turn is in theory a single strand), poke a hole in the middle of the hanky, streeeeeetch it out almost to the thickness you need and add twist. I've long wanted to try stretching and then knitting / crocheting without adding twist, which does work.

In this case I did spin it, and then navajo plied (my first go at n-plying with a spindle, I think). The picture isn't great. It looks a bit neater in real life than in this picture.

If you're interested in trying this, here's Sealy's own video showing everything I've just said.

Tour de Fleece Day 12

Is it day 12? I've lost count.

But I have made my first goal, to finish this 100g. I'd already started it before the Tour started but with daily spinning it seemed like a good opportunity to finish it.

This first picture was taken with a macro lens, so it looks much bulkier than it really is, so here's a shot with the spindle for scale:

I spun with team Drop Spindle Addicts and spun & plied the yarn using that spindle. I make this 290 yds and (by eye) it's somewhere between lace and sock.

The fibre is silk / mohair / wool from picperfic's fibre club, colour 'Monet's Pond'. A perfect mix for socks, I'm thinking and I have a pattern in mind.

Tour de Fleece 2015 - start as you mean to go on

I've started my Tour as I mean to go on.

I joined Team Drop Spindle Addicts because that seemed appropriate. I have this gorgeous silk/mohair/polwarth from picperfic's luxury fibre club already started.

I plan to finish that and then finish off some pure 'straight from the bunny' angora I'm halfway through on a little Turkish spindle.

full drop spindle?

I started spinning this 'Monet's Pond' from picperfic with enthusiasm, but recently that's waned and I've been spending the time on a different project. Why?

After a couple of weeks of non-production, I worked it out this morning. I'd decided to split the fibre and spin half on one spindle, half on another and then ply from the two cops.

But with half of the first half done, the spindle is getting very heavy (the one on the right). I've seen people using much fuller spindles than this, but really, it wasn't fun. I'm spinning fairly fine, so it's taking more care to prevent the work from breaking, plus it takes more effort to twist the spindle and get it spinning.

So I've started another spindle and will have four before I ply. That'll mean a bit of joining but that's worthwhile in return for starting again on a nice light spindle which only takes a little flick to get it whizzing around.

Tour de Fleece - day one

This is a bit unofficial as I've not joined a team or set anything up on Ravelry but I am entering the spirit of the thing and spinning each day while the cycling event is on.

The daily spin will be very useful as I've really built up a huge stash of fibre, partly thanks to Wonderwool and partly thanks to a membership of Picperfic's luxury fibre club.

Not a huge amount today as I've been out all day but have just been unwinding by spinning a bit of this lovely angora from Bigwig's Wardrobe at Wonderwool. The very cute little spindle is from 1st class also Wonderwool. I've seen them at two previous shows and regretted not starting a collection.

I've not done all that's on the spindle because I started this a few days ago and have picked it up for a quick twirl occasionally. (I do realise that I've got things muddled and have been winding 2-under, 1-over rather than vice versa which means I won't get as much on this cake.)

Are you taking part in TdF? Tell me about it in the comments - especially if you're blogging about it.