Category: spinning reports

A much anticipated Guild course run by Sue. Ten participants enjoyed an information packed day full of inspiration and expert guidance. There was a fine display of work by Sue with
examples of how she had used her art yarns in a variety of ways.

Participants brought in their wheels, and in particular wheels with a large orifice and low ratio. There was a fine selection of materials for us to use in the creation of the yarns – and the key to success was clearly going to be perseverance and patience. To start with we attempted to create a slub whilst resisting the temptation to predraft. A
slub is created using less than the staple length as the twist will enter the yarn at the narrowest point. Treadling the wheel slowly with a light tension enabled the twist to enter into both the thick and thin sections of the fleece, before it was pulled onto the bobbin with more control.

Attempting to spiral ply and produce coils, we were given cones of yarn to practice the ply. Whilst understanding the mathematics of twist and plying, it was very difficult not to send an over twisted mass onto the bobbin. With practice, several cocoons and halos were also produced on the single. It was a very meditative process.

Sue also found time to demonstrate a beaded yarn (which I have since practiced on a necklace teaching spinning to my granddaughter with some success). There is a possibility
of a further workshop on adding beads to Art Yarns in the future.

Sue made the process thoroughly engaging and her enthusiasm was clear to see. All of the participants had a fantastic day with many new skills learned!

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April 2022 Members’ Day

The focus for the day was spinning. We had demonstrations of combing, blending board and picker. As usual there was also a lot of chat and a bit of show and tell! Sheila had brought her double weave samples to give people a clearer idea of what the May workshop is about. Aileen was wearing a jumper knitted from thick handspun singles – it looked great, was lovely and warm, and, even better, quick to make! Susan’s show and tell included all three of our core crafts: fibre she had rainbow dyed as a demonstration for the dye group had been spun and plied with black to make the colours pop, then knitted into a tube on Ann’s circular knitting machine; she also had a throw woven from yarn dyed in autumn colours and a long sampler of different patterns woven on the same warp. Denise had a hat knitted from handspun samples.

Ann demonstrated combing with full size wool combs. These are fearsome looking objects with four rows of long sharp tines, and are used to prepare long stapled fleece for worsted spinning. To start with, one comb is fixed in the stand with the tines facing upwards, and loaded with fleece to about a third of the way up. The fleece is loaded one staple at a time, with the butt ends on the tines and the tips facing forwards. It is best to remove the staple from the fleece with a sharp tug so that it comes out cleanly without pulling the fleece out of order. Once the comb is loaded it is rotated a quarter turn to the right and fixed in this position. The other comb is held with the tines facing downwards and swung down so that the tines engage initially with the tips of the fleece, then gradually moved in as the fleece opens up. Once most of the fleece has transferred to the second comb this is swept sideways across the first comb from right to left, still with the tines facing downwards, until most of the fleece has been transferred back. The process is repeated until the fleece if fully opened up. The fleece is then drawn off the comb through a diz to make a sliver. A diz is a concave piece of shell / bone / wood / plastic with a small hole in the middle – the hole should be the same diameter as the yarn you want to create. To get started you twist the ends of the fibres on the comb just enough to thread them through the hole in the diz, holding it with the concave side towards the comb, then gently pull through, alternating your hands to get an even pull. Keep going till only the short fibres are left on the comb. The sliver is then gently rolled up to store till you are ready to spin – no need to draft, just add twist!

Liz showed us how to use a blending board to make rolags and batts. A blending board is a piece of wood with card cloth fixed to it. Liz loaded it by anchoring fibre at the top of the board and then pulling it out into a thin film, repeating this across the board, leaving gaps to load another colour – she used two shades of blue. After building up several layers she smoothed them down with a brush rather like a flick carder, and then used two pieces of dowel to make rolags. You trap the fringe at the top end of the board between the dowels, then lift them, attenuating the fibre, and roll. Liz gets three or four rolags from a board. It is important to hold the dowels with a bit of space between them, otherwise it’s hard to pull them out of the rolag! Liz then loaded the blending board again, this time with more fibre, and rolled it off as a batt. She uses these for felting, but you could also spin from them.

Susan demonstrated the use of the swing picker, another fearsome looking piece of equipment, used to open up fleece prior to carding. The swing part has a curved base with nails projecting downwards. This moves across a base with nails pointing upwards. Fleece is fed in at the back (ideally not with the hands!) and the swing is lifted backwards by its handle and pushed forwards, pushing the fleece over the nails. The opened out fleece is projected forwards. It is important to ensure that no-one is standing close to the front of the picker as they could get caught by the nails as they swing upwards. The picker very quickly opened up a quantity of fleece.

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Another interesting meeting I wasn’t able to attend! Enclosed is the write up from Norah:
JohnnyShiels

Guild member Sophie presented this workshop. There is a long history of flax growing in Friesland in the Netherlands where Sophie lives. As recently as 150 years ago everyone had a small field of flax, which the women spun into linen yarn for shirts, nightwear, children’s clothes, lace etc. The woman who taught Sophie to spin flax was taught by her grandmother.
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Flax needs a well manured, well tilled sandy clay soil, a growing temperature of 10-26 degrees, full sun and plenty of moisture. The seeds were planted closely (about 2400 per square metre) so that the plants would grow tall and give long fibres – flax is a bast fibre like hemp and ramie: the fibre comes from within the stem. Traditionally the seeds were sown on the 100th day of the year (10 April), hand weeded after 2 weeks, and harvested around 18 July after 100 days of growing. The plants were hand pulled for maximum length, and gathered into stooks to dry in the fields. Then they were rippled to remove the seeds which can be used for linseed oil, medicine and animal feed.

Once the seeds were removed the flax could be stored, as it was no longer of interest to mice! It was generally stored over winter, then in April the retting process was begun. The flax was tied in bundles and put into ditches and ponds, covered in mud to make it sink and left for about 3 weeks. Retting can be done in salt as well as fresh water, and flax can also be dew retted in the fields. Retting dissolves the pectin in the outer sheath of the stem releasing the fibres. Because of the bacteria involved the smell was very unpleasant and there was damage to water life. Nowadays flax is retted indoors in tanks of hot water with chemicals. The retting is complete when the hard core of the stem can be pulled out.

After drying the next part of the process is scutching – using a wooden blade to break up and remove the hard outer coating. Then the flax is hackled to separate the fibres and produce fine flax for spinning. The shorter fibres were used for rougher yarn for rope and string.

A dressed distaff is used when spinning flax to keep the long fibres from tangling. Sophie has a distaff that attaches to her wheel, but a distaff can just be a straight stick with a cardboard cone on top. Sophie showed us how she dresses her distaff: take a small portion of the flax strick; take hold of some of the fibres at the end, pull them out and lay them on a table; carry on like this until the whole portion has been opened out, then it roll onto the cone, and tie a ribbon tightly round the top, then loosely crossed down to the bottom (see pictures below).
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Flax has a natural twist to the left and is spun S (with the wheel turned anti-clockwise). It is best spun damp, so Sophie has a damp sponge in a pot hanging on her wheel. Grip the fibre near the distaff with the left hand, dampen right fingers, pull out fibre and feed onto the wheel. Instead of watching the orifice you watch your fingers. Change hooks often as the yarn loosens as it dries and it is easy to lose and end! For weaving the flax needs to be spun fine with a high twist. The linen yarn is often used as a single (i.e. not plied).
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The linen skein needs to be boiled in a solution of soap (half the dry weight of the yarn) and sodium carbonate (washing soda). Rinse (can use cold water) and dry. Repeat the process if necessary. The washed skeins used to be taken to a weaving mill to be woven and bleached – moisture, light and air will bleach. Linen has several natural shades depending on the retting process – greyish from mud, slightly bleached from salt etc. It will not dye successfully until it has been bleached completely and only the cellulose remains. The yarn is about 25% thinner after bleaching.

The afternoon Craft and Chat session was lively. Sheila is following an on-line weaving course from Jane Stafford Textiles, and showed a beautiful woven sample she had done. A number of other people had weaving projects to share; Dave showed us his hand spun and dyed knitted garments and a fleece picker that looks safer than a swing picker; Sarah had been doing some embroidery.
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Finally Dave demonstrated how to use a nostepinne.
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Amanda Hannaford ran this workshop, which focussed on fleece – the different properties of fleece from a variety of breeds, how to process and spin them to get the best from them, and what the resulting yarn can be used for. [envira-gallery id=”4426″]

She started by showing us samples of short, medium and long stapled fleece processed in different ways. First a short lambswool, showing an even, bouncy yarn spun longdraw from hand carded rolags; then three Jacob’s skeins spun: without preparation, longdraw from rolags, combed and worsted spun; Zwarbles fleece she said varies from long and curled (ideally worsted spun) to short and crimpy (ideally woollen spun); Wensleydale she had flick carded and spun with a short, worsted draft to produce a lustrous, smooth yarn. All of this demonstrated the importance of good preparation and an appropriate spinning technique.

She then went on to talk about some of the fleeces she likes to use and which are available to her locally, and showed us samples:

Southdown and Dorset Down: short downs fleece with a crisp handle, ideal for carding and woollen spinning. The fleece had been put through a swing picker before carding. Both had produced sock yarn and Aran weight yarn. A very fine Southdown had produced lace weight yarn.
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Cotswold and Wensleydale: lustre longwool. Amanda had produced enough 5 ply gansey wool for an adult gansey from Cotswold fleece, which would knit up at 7-9 stitches per inch. She told us she always counts the wraps per inch of her singles – the singles for the gansey yarn were 60 wpi. The Cotswold also produced an excellent curled loop boucle. The Wensleydale had been dyed and most had been combed and worsted spun: a few skeins had been tail-spun. This had been knitted into a shawl, with the tail spun yarn as an accent.
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Romney: medium fleece with slight lustre; quite long, so best combed
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Portland: rare breed; fine creamy fleece with slight lustre; can be combed or carded

Exmoorino: Exmoor Horn crossed with Merino; very fine; comb
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North Ronaldsay is a breed more local to us. It is double coated, with a very fine undercoat, which will spin up to a thickish laceweight, and a longer hairy outer coat.
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Soay, a primitive breed, sheds its coat naturally. The fleece needs to be gathered in bits and varies in quality from fine to coarse and in colour from blond to chocolate.
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Dealing with raw fleece: unroll and spread out on a sheet out of doors; skirt: remove lower part of each leg, edges of belly and dirty fleece from the britch area; soak overnight just in cold water, then leave to drain; then put into hot water (more than hand hot, but not boiling) with a good squirt of cheap washing up liquid; leave for about 20 minutes, then rinse in gradually cooler water till the rinsing water is clean, and leave to dry. N.B. You can wash fleece a section at a time, you don’t need to do the whole fleece at once.

Amanda finished by demonstrating combing and the use of a diz to draw off the combed fibre into a sliver, and showed her hand carding video: Hand carding wool – YouTube. This is one of a number of handspinning related videos. Amada’s YouTube channel is ADHUK.
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Pictures from the afternoon craft and chat session are below.
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Jaine Mahon of (Skye Silks) gave us a wonderful workshop on silk spinning via Zoom on the morning of 13 February. She started by taking us on a tour of her studio, showing us some of her lovely handwoven silk scarves, and other handwoven and hand dyed items, then on to spinning. She had made up boxes, beautifully packaged, containing a range of types of silk, which participants were able to buy beforehand. Jaine worked through these, talking about the production process, and showing us the most effective way to spin them. The pace was relaxed, with time for us to have a go at spinning each type of silk as it was introduced, and plenty of time for questions.

I took a lot of screen shots, so have divided the photos into sections. The first includes shots of the studio, then Jaine holding up some of the items in the pack: a cocoon; tussah silk which ranges in colour from light to dark honey’ eri silk – dark and woolly; carrier rods which are waste from the reeling process – these can be used for silk papermaking.

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Cultivated silk comes from the cocoons of bombix mori moths, which are fed on mulberry leaves. The grubs inside the cocoons are stifled with steam so that the silk can be reeled off as one continuous filament. For spinners this silk is often sold as a top folded into a brick shape (a silk brick). To spin open up the brick, divide off a section and pre-draft it. Jaine recommended spinning from the fold (i.e. with a section folded over the finger) to give more control. She recommended this method also for tussah which also often comes as a top. Recycled sari silk (the blue top in the pictures below) gives a textured yarn, and can be spun from the fold or straight from the top.

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Degummed cocoons need to be opened out then held gently in the hand while drawing out into a long triangle to spin as the fibre is very long. It can be spun very fine. Mawata caps and hankies consist of layers of degummed cocoons stretched over a shape. To spin separate off a layer, make a hole in the middle with your fingers and carefully (silk is strong and can cut!) widen the hole, pulling the cap or hankie into a large circle until the circle breaks; keep drafting to the thickness you want, then add twist.

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The first three photos below show Jaine spinning noil, which gives a textured yarn. It varies in quality – some can be very short – and Jaine recommended getting a sample before buying a quantity. Floss is the final bits from the centre of the cocoon, and comes as a carded mass. It may need to be opened up on fine hand carders before spinning. To dye it needs to be separated into layers or the dye will not penetrate. Throwsters waste is a by product of the commercial spinning process. It produces a very textured yarn.

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In the afternoon we had our usual craft, chat show and tell session. Anne and Isobel held up some textured silk spinning, Isobel a woven silk scarf, Hilma a collapse weave scarf in silk and wool, Sheila was putting the finishing touches to her woven blanket, Alison had one of her little woven baskets, Norah was spinning flax, and Sarah showed us a notebook with a lovely felted cover which she uses to record her projects. Both sessions were attended by around 30 people.

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Between 40 and 50 people attended this event, with some coming and going in the course of the day. We had a big circle of spinners around the hall, with several weavers at tables as well. This was the day to bring along what we had made from the fibre distributed at the September Open Day: 50 gms Corriedale tops, 40 gms Blue Faced Leicester / seacell tops, 10 gms recycled sari silk. Apart from the sari silk the fibre was undyed. The challenge was to spin and make something from the fibre. We could dye it, and we could add up to 100 gms of fibre or yarn; felting was also allowed. The number and variety of items created was truly impressive – pictures below:

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plua a few pictures of people:

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