Thursday 4 October 2012

New skills

In the middle of July, something new came into my life.

A lovely Ashford Traditional wheel.
I've not had a great deal of time to really play on it yet as I went on holiday a few days later and have had plenty of other demands on my time recently, but in addition to playing a bit to get the feel for it, I've completed one spinning project.


This yarn came together as a bit of an accident. I got a lovely pink and blue 100% bamboo Yarn Yard roving in a p/hop offer and bought the dark grey Jacob roving from HillTop Cloud.  I didn't intend to ply them together, but it worked out well.


I originally tried to spin the bamboo on a drop spindle, but the very long staple was killing me and the yarn kept drifting apart. Once I got the wheel, I tried on that and as the wheel provides a 'spare hand' of sorts, the spinning was much easier.


The jacob spun up beautifully on the wheel and really quickly.



I plied the two together and realised that I had loads of bamboo single left, so I spun up some cream 100% merino roving that I had in stash to ply with the remainder of the bamboo.



The finished yarn is a light DK weight and has a lovely sheen from the bamboo without being to shiney. I'd like to make something for my daughter with it. I think that the cream/bamboo ply will make a good accent or edging.  I think that I have about 500m all told.


 Just need to find the right pattern now - possibly a dress...