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A plan for the Tour de Fleece
Jun. 28th, 2013 04:56 pmPartly because ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
djjo was a good sport and joined the 2013 Blogathon this year, I've decided to join the Tour de Fleece, a spin-along challenge that accompanies the Tour de France. I also recogniz how valuable handspinning has become to me as a habitual counterbalance to the intensely cognitive process of writing creatively. I like to take an afternoon break from words and ideas to lose my mind in the visual, tactile experience of colour, texture and natural fibre. I just learned to spin a year ago and this will be my first TdF.
We are supposed to set goals. I have two.
1. Spin 15 minutes a day
I think this is the bare minimum we're supposed to commit. I've already made this a sporadic habit over the past year. Hopefully the TdF will just remind me to take that mid-afternoon break, so looked-forward-to and yet so easy to procrastinate into missing a day.
2. Handspun woven scarf project
At Ontario Handspinning Seminar a couple weeks ago I bought a pound of this lovely stuff from Lori at the Black Lamb. It is mill-end type superwash merino/cashmere/silk (75/15/10). I think I paid $25 for a pound of it.
It is a joy to fondle, and all my casual spinning since the seminar has involved this stuff. I've experimented with combining colours in different ways and using hand carders to produce rolags.
I've also practised the long-draw method which produces a woolen (loftier) yarn, with inconsistent results. One of the shortcomings of this fibre is that it is a little nappy, even after thorough carding. Long-draw takes a step of faith, or at least self-confidence, and I don't have it yet.
The samples below show my progress from right to left:
Less lofty yarn is also stronger and therefore suitable for weaving, which causes a lot more tension and friction than knitting. That made me think of the diamond garden scarves I wove last summer and posted here. I think the colours at my disposal would make a rocking handspun version of one of these.
For the variegated weft I need to make two sets of rolags with parallel colour gradations, spin two nearly identical singles, then ply them together. That will be a new adventure for me. I plan to card them moderately in an effort to maintain more silk highlights (as in the middle sample) and colour depth. However, I'll spin using the semi-woolen technique I'm most comfortable with.
Now I just have to decide what to do about the warp. The solid, dark background colour of the warp is what gives the weft colours such punch, the stained-glass window effect. I want to reproduce that. I've considered using a commercial yarn such as the Cascade used in these scarves. But how much more satisfying to spin it myself!
My tentative plan is to blend some of the dark green merino/cashmere/silk with some black or dark brown merino. We'll see.
I'll start TdF tomorrow by calculating how much yarn I need, weighing out portions of fibre and making different colour combinations for the weft. It will take most (if not all) of the duration of the challenge to spin it. I do not have a clear idea in my head about how long this kind of thing takes. At least I will have plenty of time to contemplate the warp question.
djjo was a good sport and joined the 2013 Blogathon this year, I've decided to join the Tour de Fleece, a spin-along challenge that accompanies the Tour de France. I also recogniz how valuable handspinning has become to me as a habitual counterbalance to the intensely cognitive process of writing creatively. I like to take an afternoon break from words and ideas to lose my mind in the visual, tactile experience of colour, texture and natural fibre. I just learned to spin a year ago and this will be my first TdF.We are supposed to set goals. I have two.
1. Spin 15 minutes a day
I think this is the bare minimum we're supposed to commit. I've already made this a sporadic habit over the past year. Hopefully the TdF will just remind me to take that mid-afternoon break, so looked-forward-to and yet so easy to procrastinate into missing a day.
2. Handspun woven scarf project
At Ontario Handspinning Seminar a couple weeks ago I bought a pound of this lovely stuff from Lori at the Black Lamb. It is mill-end type superwash merino/cashmere/silk (75/15/10). I think I paid $25 for a pound of it.
It is a joy to fondle, and all my casual spinning since the seminar has involved this stuff. I've experimented with combining colours in different ways and using hand carders to produce rolags.
I've also practised the long-draw method which produces a woolen (loftier) yarn, with inconsistent results. One of the shortcomings of this fibre is that it is a little nappy, even after thorough carding. Long-draw takes a step of faith, or at least self-confidence, and I don't have it yet.
The samples below show my progress from right to left:
- (dark green) was spun using an attempted long-draw directly from fibre with no other preparation. Silk does not take up colour as much as the other fibres and has a lot more sheen, so this produced an interesting variegation, but I'm dissatisfied with the consistency.
- (light green) I tried carding together two different colours to produce two rolags of different hues, then using the long-draw method. The colour variegation is more interesting and there are still some highlights from the silk, but I'm still dissatisfied with the consistency.
- (orange) I carded together two colours, this time more thoroughly. There are no distinguishable highlights from the silk. I spun this one using my own version of an over-the-finger type technique that produces a semi-woolen fibre. It is not as lofty but still very soft and more consistent than the other samples.
Less lofty yarn is also stronger and therefore suitable for weaving, which causes a lot more tension and friction than knitting. That made me think of the diamond garden scarves I wove last summer and posted here. I think the colours at my disposal would make a rocking handspun version of one of these.
For the variegated weft I need to make two sets of rolags with parallel colour gradations, spin two nearly identical singles, then ply them together. That will be a new adventure for me. I plan to card them moderately in an effort to maintain more silk highlights (as in the middle sample) and colour depth. However, I'll spin using the semi-woolen technique I'm most comfortable with.
Now I just have to decide what to do about the warp. The solid, dark background colour of the warp is what gives the weft colours such punch, the stained-glass window effect. I want to reproduce that. I've considered using a commercial yarn such as the Cascade used in these scarves. But how much more satisfying to spin it myself!
My tentative plan is to blend some of the dark green merino/cashmere/silk with some black or dark brown merino. We'll see.
I'll start TdF tomorrow by calculating how much yarn I need, weighing out portions of fibre and making different colour combinations for the weft. It will take most (if not all) of the duration of the challenge to spin it. I do not have a clear idea in my head about how long this kind of thing takes. At least I will have plenty of time to contemplate the warp question.
