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Much Thinner
The Montadale Wool in the "Girl Power" colorway is spinning up thinner than I expected. It's running between carpet sewing thread and size 8 crochet thread in size. That means that I should be able to chain ply it to preserve the color changes and still end up with a fingering or sport weight, felting resistant 3 ply yarn.
I'm a little disappointed with the hand. It's a bit harsh, but nothing a little hair conditioner won't fix. Unfortunately it also has second cuts.
Second cuts happen when the sheep is sheared. When the short fibers left by the first pass of the shearer's clippers are cut along with the next pass of full length wool, you get neps. Like the short hairs that fall down the collar of your shirt when the barber clips your hairline, neps can be annoying.
I don't mind the little grape-seed sized bumps in the yarn that 2nd cuts add. I won't be weaving with it, so the neps won't catch and fray in a heddle. They'll provide texture. I hope.
There is the possibility that this yarn would make a nice beret if it turns out to be too course for next to the skin. And if it's too course for a beret, well then there's a locker hooked pillbox hat I have in mind. We'll see.
One theory on decay
It's a funny thing about crafting. Often the raw fleece is absolutely beautiful. After it's washed and dyed and rinsed again it loses some of the sheen or the suppleness it had. Then, no matter how carefully I card and spin it, more of the beauty is somehow lost. The color changes I thought would be fabulous have turned tedious.
But sometimes it takes a turn during the plying stage, like this Purple Haze color way did.
Tomorrow I squoosh some water laced with eucalan wool wash through the yarn and hang it to dry to fluff it up and set the twist.
For now, I start carding the "Girl Power" colorway.
Plying the Purples
About 2-1/2 Babe Fiber Garden bobbins later and I'm plying the wool. This plying bobbin is not quite through the first filled-to-the-brim hand-spun bobbin. I still have a good bit left of the first alpaca ball. When I'm done plying, I'll skein the yarn and wash it. Once it's dry, I'll niddynoddy measure and report.
It's fingering/lace weight now, but it could move up to baby/sport once set.
Spinning Last Weekend's Goodies...
I'm very happy with the Rambouillet combed top that I bought at the WS&WF at the Green Pastures booth. It's 4 oz. of wool in the colorway 'Purple Haze' (periwinkle & eggplant variegated).
It looks like I'll get two bobbins plus a bit, of lace weight singles from that hank. When I've finished the rest of the rolags, I'll be plying it with a commercial periwinkle lace weight from Alpaca Warehouse. I bought a several 50 gram skeins from AW during a sale but haven't been able to find a project for it until now. The yarn is a blend of wool, acrylic and alpaca in a periwinkle color that is so close to the lighter color of the roving it's spooky.
I carded the roving into rolags because, as often happens with acid dyes, the over-dyed eggplant color became a little spongy and uncooperative when it came to spinning. I wanted a woolen yarn and tried spinning form the fold, but it wasn't cooperating. Instead, I'm working long-draw on the lighter yarn and devolving to inch-worm when I get to spongy bits.
The finished yarn should make a nice scarf with big dramatic blocks of periwinkle separated by smaller marled yarn stripes of eggplant/periwinkle.
