#handspinning

Stage #14 (yesterday) A year ago I picked up the 2022 and 2023 "Conservation Breed Fiber Bundles" from The Woolery, which contain 250g of top from Devon, Exmoor Horn, Manx Loaghtan, Welsh, Wenslydale, Swaledale, and Jacob, plus 500g of Lonk. I've done nothing with them since, but now seemed a good time to do so! I measured out 50g (1.8 oz) of each with the plan to just spin each one and experience the differences in the fibers. Simply handling them demonstrated just how different each is from the others! I chose 50g as it was a perfect amount to spin on my Nano's 2 oz bobbins, leaving the EEW 6.1 free for other projects. Or so I thought! I started with the plentiful Lonk because it felt the best pairing for husky fur in future blendings: soft and fluffy and very white. However, I REALLY fought with the Nano, trying to get the speed and tension right. I just could NOT get it to take up properly! After getting through about 1/3, I gave up on that setup, but in one final act of desperation I tried putting the Nano bobbin on the 6.1 and it fit! I was able to continue with much better control over tension. I managed to get in some pretty decent long-draw drafting and finished the batch. I was trying for a bit thicker, loftier yarn than I'm used to with dog fur, and I'm pretty happy with the final results. There are still some thin sections I might have gone back and fixed, but I kept these in as part of the learning process. #TourDeFleece #TourDeFleece2026 #HandSpinning

Of the eight breeds in the fiber samplers I got, the Swaledale was the worst for kemp. These are the thick, white fibers in this photo, often with sharp kinks. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. This is what Fleece and Fiber has to suggest for what to do with yarn from this breed: "Make yourself a hair shirt, or something more appropriate, like a bag or lined jacket or rug. Some people may be able to handle Swaledale in a hat, but don't plan on it for a sweater." 🤣 #HandSpinning #FiberArts

#TourDeFleece Stage 15 Tonight I spun Exmoor Horn, which according to Fleece & Fiber is "a meat breed, so their wool is an interesting, overlooked by-product. Wool data is scarce." The book's hands-on description comes from a single sample that "felt very crisp, nearly crunchy, with some spring to it." I'm not sure if I'd call the fiber I got crunchy, but it is definitely not as soft as the Lonk I spun last night. The fibers were long (6") and relatively straight, more than I'd expect from the photo in F&F. It was quite easy to spin! (F&F notes this too.) I easily got into a smooth rhythm of semi-woolen long-draw (long, slow drafting, but with lots of little releases of twist along the way). I was able to get even results, thicker than my usual fur singles. Kemp was rare enough that I didn't mind pausing to pick it out as I came across it. However, F&F suggests a worsted spin, so I did a bit of inchworming the last ~25%, which also was nice and smooth, and tended towards finer singles even though I tried to keep it thicker. Sadly, I didn't mark the transition between the two, because now I want to ply the woolen and worsted singles independently to see how they compare. I guess I'll just have to see if I can spot it by eye. #TourDeFleece2026 #HandSpinning

#TourDeFleece Rest Day # 2 No spinning, but I did transfer my Tibetan Mastiff / merino blends to skein/hank format for better side-by-side comparison. Making up for my unofficial rest day last Friday.

In these photos, top to bottom:

• 2:1 TM/Dark Chocolate (purple ties) 3-ply -2:1 TM/Espresso (orange ties) 3-ply large & 2-ply small
• 3:1 TM/Espresso (yellow ties) 3-ply

I'd already done a 1:1 TM/Espresso blend, and found that it really didn't have the fuzzy halo you get from 100% fur yarn: it was just a brown yarn. So, the bottom 2 blends are to see if I can get more of that halo back with a smaller fraction of wool, while still keeping the benefits of wool's "memory". The fur is much harder to come by, so the more wool I can get away with, the longer I can make the fur last.

The 3:1 does indeed look fuzzier than the 2:1, so I'm quite curious now how it'll compare after wash, thwack/snap, and swatch.

The Dark Chocolate is a slightly redder brown merino from a different sheep from the same flock. It's still subtle, but you can see the difference from the Espresso a little more here than on the bobbins. It brings out the redder tones in the fur, whereas the Espresso is a better match for the dark browns in the fur.

#TourDeFleece2026 #HandSpinning #Chiengora

#TourDeFleece Stage 16 Gave the Tibetan Mastiff/merino blends a wash in doggy shampoo. Forgot to give them a thwack! I usually don't with fur, but wonder if it might be good to do with the blends. Tonight's heritage blend: 50g of Manx Loaghtan top, a breed from the Isle of Man that almost went extinct. According to Fleece & Fiber, originally, brown was a rare color, but was selected for during its recovery and is the predominant color now. It's mostly a meat breed, but has a soft fleece (which I can confirm! It was light and soft!), "a relatively soft fiber with an exceptional amount of bounce, a quality that can be maximized through woolen-style preparation and spinning." I enjoyed spinning it woolen long-draw style. My camera doesn't quite capture the sandy/mousy brown correctly. I can see why F&F concludes, "Unusual color and softness. Should be better known than it is, because of its resilience and all-around appealing character." #TourDeFleece2026 #HandSpinning #FiberArts

Today's #FinishOrFrogAlong Q&A: What work in progress are you most excited about right now? Tell us about it. If you only have one WIP tell us about that one! If you have more than one - why is this one the most compelling right now? What makes it interesting or exciting for you? #Handspinning #knitting #crochet #weaving #quilting #sewing #embroidery #CrossStitch #FiberArts #FibreArts #crafting #TextileArts #FoFAQandA

From seed to yarn. What a special process. It’s easy to take for granted the amount of processing and labor required for even the most basic item you casually use in the course of your day. Consider toilet paper, for example 😂 I finished plying some yarn last night which is the end of my process—except now I’m considering using the yarn for #weaving. I’m not sure why it hadn’t occurred to me before because I collect woven textiles and love the craft. #FiberArts #Fibers #HandSpinning #Spinning

Today's #FinishOrFrogAlong Q&A: Tell us about one of your favorite finished objects of all time. What is it? Why is it your favorite project? Who was it for? Do you have any pics you can share? #Handspinning #knitting #crochet #weaving #quilting #sewing #embroidery #CrossStitch #fiberarts #Fibrearts #TextileArts #FoFAQandA

Hi All! FinishOrFrogAlong is coming in September - open to all crafters. We always have lots of people into #knitting #crochet #handspinning #textilearts #fiberarts #crafting #quilting #embroidery #sewing #crossStitch - anyone else who wants to join would be great too! Really hoping to connect with returning crafters and new peeps (what do we call new Masto-peeps?) Follow #FinishOrFrogAlong and join us in September!

RE: https://sunny.garden/@Paws2Spindle/116961470705350878 Question for fiber folks about moths: Last night, I forgot I had these skeins out drying until after dark. When I went to bring them in, a moth flew up from one of the skeins. These are a blend of wool and dog fur. Should I be worried that the moth might have laid eggs in the yarn? Should I throw them in the freezer or do something more drastic? I'm keeping them well separate from the rest of my stash for now. #Yarn #FiberArts #HandSpinning

Tour de fleece part 3 3 braids of Bluefaced Leicester, I'm spinning it a bit thicker than usual and then chain ply to keep the color sequences. At least that's the plan. @fiberarts@fedigroups.social @handspinning@fedigroups.social #tourDeFleece2026 #handspinning #fiberarts

Hand spinners: I have a Schacht Matchless wheel with a jumbo flyer and bobbin and am thinking about getting a dedicated wheel with a jumbo flyer for plying so I don't have to change out the orifice and flyer every time I want to ply onto the jumbo bobbin. #HandSpinning… (1/2)

#TourDeFleece Stage #8 Making up for no photos yesterday, I guess! This is a 2:1 Tibetan Mastiff/merino blend, but with a lighter, richer brown: "Dark Chocolate" instead of "Espresso". (I may have mixed up the names in previous posts/replies.) I'd weighed it out, but didn't get around to blending it back when I did the Espresso samples. I'd chosen the Espresso for the primary blending work because it matched the dark browns best in the TM fur, but the Dk Chocolate is nice at matching the redder tones that can be found in it too. It's difficult to see a difference on the singles, so I'm really curious how it'll turn out plied and worked into a swatch! Mostly spent my time blending on the drum carder, but I did sneak in time to spin about 1/3 of the batch before calling it a night. [Edit to note that these browns are natural colors from different sheep at Fleecewood Farms where I got the wool.] [Edit #2 to correct the year in the TDF hashtag. Sorry for extra alerts!] #TourDeFleece2026 #HandSpinning

#TourDeFleece Stage 10 No actual spinning, but plenty busy nonetheless! The white husky/wool blend was now dry after a second wash, so I removed it from the PVC frame and wound it into a cake. It's nice and white, and a close enough match for the Rio gray for me to move forward with that double-knit project. I blended up another 4 oz of 1:1 Tibetan Mastiff / Espresso merino for a project where I'm more interested in color than maximizing fur content and character. That came out really well. And finally I transferred the 2:1 TM/Espresso merino singles to 3 cones for plying. More on that in the next post. Overall, a productive day! #TourDeFleece2026 #HandSpinning #FiberArts

A quick video of my fiber transfer setup. Please excuse the mess of my Fiber Corner that is still under construction! Here I'm transferring the 2:1 TM/Espresso merino from the EEW 6.1 bobbin to the cone winder via the yarn counter. According to the counter, the whole bobbin had 319 yards. After accounting for the weight of the cone, this was 63g of singles. The nice thing about the EEW system is that I was then able to wind off of this blue cone onto the two others, again via the counter, but this time automatically set to stop at 105 yd. This resulted in 3 cones with exactly 21g yarn each! Oddly, the EEW cones don't have adapters for the EEW Lazy Kate, so I have to improvise there. (EEW Nano bobbins + chopsticks! See the previous post.) but all together it makes an efficient system. #TourDeFleece #HandSpinning

#TourDeFleece today was a rest day but I spun anyway and will likely take a different day off. I finished plying my Blanket Octopus spin. As I mentioned yesterday, the second bobbin was a lot finer than the first. I ran out of singles from the first while I still had about 1 oz left on the second. I made a center pull ball with what was left and plied from the inside and outside of that ball. It’s been soaked and snapped and is now drying. #Handspinning #TourDeFleece2026 #TextileArts #FiberArts

Today is the first day of Tour de France, and therefore also Tour de Fleece, where spinners spin each day the bikers race. I'm starting with spinning up these amazing braids of Rambouillet dyed by Fossil Fibers - Bee Hummingbird colorway. I'll post another pic EOD but this is where I am after the opening TdF Zoom with Darn Knit Anyway. #handspinning #TourDeFleece #TourDeFleece2026 #TextileArts #FiberArts

It’s April 2 and time for my monthly round up of my #FiberGoals. I have done 5+ min of fiberarts for 92 consecutive days. Mostly spinning, sometimes knitting. I also made hexiflats (3 handspun). AND, I completed one project from spinning through knitting (my S2KAL Jaunty). Other things - like progress on the Advent calendar - have fallen away. That will probably be a next year thing at this point. I’m really happy with what I’m doing right now. #TextileArt #handSpinning #knitting #FiberArts