I have been experimenting with my Bulky Flyer on my Cherry Matchless wheel. I used it to do some plying and then I got out my processed Icelandic fleece from Schacht Fleece Farm. I bought a long Lendrum driveband and put it on my Matchless to spin in Scotch Tension with the Bulky Flyer. I had to cut the band, melt the ends with a match, get them to stick and then shave off the lumpy excess. Probably the only thing I do not like about my Matchless is that there is no way to get an elastic drive band on without cutting it first.
Using the slow whorl, I spun two samples up, one at 6:1 and one at 7.5:1. Schacht makes an even slower whorl that is the size of a dinner place with ratios of 4:1 and 5:1. The sample on the left above is the 6:1 single knit on size 9 needles below the garter stitch row and size 8 needles above the garter stitch row. There is a bit of slant in the swatch as I did not weight the singles as they dried, so I will do that next time. The sample on the right is the 7.5:1 single knit in the Amstel Hat stitch pattern to see if the patterning would show up with this yarn and it turns out that it does not. These singles are about 11 to 14 wpi. I'm spinning a new bobbin at 6:1 and trying to make it a little thicker, but some thin spots are sneaking in. I would like to make this top down jacket and got the 4 sts per inch gauge with the size 8 needles. I will likely knit a hat and do some more sampling with the new bobbin of yarn and proceed from there as sampling with handspun is essential for success.
I like the color of your handspun & it's a great color for that top down jacket. I have the same problem with stitch pattern not showing up on handspun yarn.
Posted by: Ann | August 28, 2012 at 05:39 AM
Great spinning, as always. The pattern looks perfect for handspun.
Posted by: textillian | September 07, 2012 at 07:50 AM