Possessed to Knit

Fibery Birthday Presents

I received this wonderful box of birthday gifts (for my birthday tomorrow) from my Ravelry sister, Laura.  I have been frustrated with my yak spindle project, it is not the fun spinning I thought it would be and I was thinking of what would be fun to spin and then I received these delightful rovings and DVD box set today.

Starting with the top left, we have a batt of cormo & possum carded together.  There is also another batt, I could not fit everything in the photo.  Laura had a fellow Raveler with a drum carder combine these lovely fibers into two batts for me.  Next, the purple batt is a merino/possum blend, incredibly soft and carded into a thin strip that is ready to spin, with no predrafting.  On the bottom right, we have New Zealand Halfbred combed top at 27 microns, similar to merino, but with a 4" staple length, it will yield a more durable lace yarn.  There is actually half a pound of the combed top, not all of it is in the photo.  Qiviut, the down fiber from Musk Ox, is the amazingly soft ball of roving in the lower left corner.   I will spin this into a 2-ply lace yarn and knit a Ptarmigan cowl.  "The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency" DVDs will be perfect to watch while I spin my beautiful rovings.  Laura wanted to send me fibers I had never spun before and she certainly has.

Thank you to Laura for all of my fabulous birthday gifts!

Yak Spindling

I recently started spindle spinning a 4 ounce bag of yak roving as I wanted a small project to pick up when I had a few minutes to spin.  The staple length is about an inch and it is not the highest quality yak.  There appears to be some kemp and a few guard hairs, but it still feels soft over all. 

I selected my 0.5 ounce spindles (center and right) to spin such short stapled fibers.  I want to spin a yarn strong enough to stay together yet not overspun into a wire.  I ended up getting a lot of back spin with these light spindles, so I tried my 0.9 ounce spindle (left).  Now I get no back spin, though I am not sure how much fiber I will get on the spindle before the yarn starts breaking. 

I plan to spindle ply this yarn so I can keep a close eye on the feel of the resulting 2-ply yarn and maintain its softness.  This yak has no bounce to it and would make a nice cowl or scarf.

December Baby Yarn

Here is my Dragonfly Fibers merino/silk yarn, a lovely ebony and maple spindle from Spindlewood Co, and a beautiful spindle bag handmade by Laura M. 

I spindle spun (and wheel plied) the entire 4 ounces of merino/silk roving using all of my one ounce spindles.  I spun the singles very fine and rotated through my spindles as I made the 4-ply yarn.  This gave me a lot of practice with joining yarns as I learned from The Gentle Art of Plying DVD by Judith MacKenzie.  The yarn is about 350 yards and 18 to 22 wpi. 

I love Spindlewood's square spindle design plus Steve and Connie always provide excellent customer service with their wonderful spindles.  Laura's delightful spindle bag helped to make my spindling more portable.  It took a while for me to spin such fine singles.

This yarn would make an interesting pair of gloves and a nice matching cowl or a great pair of socks.  I will be knitting with it one of these days once I complete my holiday knitting.