second verse
same as the first..
I love this spindle. I showed it to you last October. It is from Ken Ledbetter. To break it in, I decided to spin something special, Foxfires’ Cashmere Silk blend. Last Friday evening, on a motel balcony somewhere in Delaware, the last bit was spun. Wednesday, I got around to plying.
When I skeined this, I measured out 446 yards. Impossible! I have spindle spun two different fibers during the past year, on two different spindles and come out with the same yardage. Yeah, both weigh in at approx. 3 oz. I must be on a roll. There were 6 cops of the cashmere / silk to ply. Somewhere, there is another ounce of fiber or more little bundles waiting for me to find them. I bought 4 ounces, not three.
Thing is, I don’t like it. Here is the problem. As I spun them I worried that I was putting on too much twist. The single felt hard. But, as I wanted a solid feeling yarn, I kept at it. I thought I’d plied it accordingly. As I plied, I checked it, it twisted back on itself a little bit. Not too much. Maybe plying in daylight would have helped, because I really didn’t see this coming. It looks under plied. The skein hung straight when I took it off the bobbin.
It was still straight and apparently balanced after a nice long soak in very warm water, hung over the line without weight and dried. Here’s a close-up.
It’s going onto the swift to have a little more twist added.
8 responses to “spindling with a Ledbetter”
Cashmere/silk in shades of pink going unloved? If the swifting doesn’t work, I will buy it from you. Sooooo pretty!! Lust and craving.
I bet you’ll change your mind once it’s knit up.
Lovely last picture.
I would say to knit a bit of it and see what you think. It looks gorgeous!
You are very dedicated to re-ply. I would have said it won’t show in the final knitting. But that’s me, sloppy. 🙂
It’s such a crapshoot sometimes. I wish I knew how to make it more predictable. I’ve signed up for SOAR. You?
I can see your mind…yarn…begonias….
But if you add more twist, won’t you lose the nice balance you have right now?…
I think it’s lovely, but I understand that little whisper of dissatisfaction. I hear it all the time too. 😉
This is really interesting to me because it seems there’s a debate in the fiber world about under/over plying. I just recently heard of attempting to get a balanced yarn as you ply it; as I tried to do so, the resulting yarn was underplied (to my eye) and rather lifeless. I guess I prefer a bouncier yarn!