Drawing to a close

Today marks the end of the formal part of this workshop.  We will continue to watch the site as long as it is live, just in case some questions or comments appear.

We need to express some thanks.  First of all, thank you to the Convenor, Spinning Blog Moderator and Committee Chair who worked diligently to make this event run so smoothly.  There was a great deal of effort spent prior to this inaugural run.  Secondly, we feel remiss not thanking the person who inspired our interests in these yarns.  At varying points in our lives, we both had the good fortune to be taught novelty yarns by Ted Carson.  Although Ted died a few years ago, we remain grateful for his expertise in spinning, his ability to teach, his patience and his marvelous sense of humour.

Tricia and I have both enjoyed our interactions with those who responded to lessons and posts. Best wishes to all who have been watching this space.

Happy spinning!

Barbara

More about images

That's a good collection you now have Christine!  Quite impressive.  Any idea how you will use the yarn not needed for your samples?

One thing we did not discuss earlier is selecting fibres for your yarns with an awarenesss of how you plan to use the yarn.  As with all blends, it's important to remember the properties of the fibres you plan to use and to analyse what each will contribute (assets and liabilities) to the final yarn. For example, if you use mohair and silk in a construction (e.g. corespun plied with silk), you may find that it might not be well-suited for a knitted garment.  Both silk and mohair are slippery and tend to grow with wear.  Addition of some wool in the construction or woven in a wool warp, it would probably behave very nicely.   When you're not sure, sample, sample, sample!

Cheers!

Barbara

Corespun images

Hi Christine, 

You are obviously on the right track when you are creating your corespun yarns, and your colours are lovely.  When I make this yarn, I find it helps to have the fibre very open and lofty, so working from hand carded or drum carded batt helps.  Using a commercially combed mohair or unevenly prepared carded batts will make even coverage and diameter control more difficult.  As always, practice, practice, practice, relax and laugh!  Well done and thank you for letting us see what you've been doing.

Barbara

Inlay Pictures From Christina

First of all thank you for taking the time to post your pictures. They are great and you are clearly enjoying yourself and making the most of this workshop.

With regards to the gold material as an inlay, I think you would have to build up a tremendous amount of twist, to successfully hold a small piece of fabric. And you don't need that kind of twist in your yarn. You might want to try a narrower but slightly longer section of material. Narrower so that you don't have too much bulk at the point where fabric meets twist. Also if you had a slightly longer piece of material you could inlay your fabric slightly short of the halfway point of its total length, put a small amount of twist in and then immediately inlay the other half of the fabric and add more twist. With practice I think you could get the same effect as what you have done but more securely inserted as you would have twist, insert fabric, twist, insert fabric, twist. Hope this makes sense.

Looking forward to more pictures.

Tricia

More pictures

Christine, you have been busy!  Great to  see all your yarns.  

Gimp: Super effort!  Tricia and I can attest to the challenges of this construction and you've done admirably well.  You are correct - consistency is all about practice.

Loop: Well done to your loops also.  I'd suggest trying to make your mohair/looping yarn a bit finer with slightly more twist (not too much or you will make snarls instead of loops).  This should help make your loops more clearly defined and cohesive.

Slubs:  This looks like a marled slub.  Is this correct?  You achieved a interesting effect.  I'm a bit puzzled by your description of covering the slub with Merino tops.  Did you hold the two colours together to make a marled yarn or did you do something different?  For a simple slub yarn, you need work only with one fibre supply.  Extra credit to you for the white plus colour result. 

Knop yarn: It sounds as though you enjoyed working with this technique.  I really like the colour in your purple sample.  Now that you've mastered the basic technique, it's time to check your knops.  (This is something which I cannot determine readily from an image.) Ideally, they will be snuggly plied and immovable along the length of the yarn.  If they slip, try to ensure you have more tension on the "knopping" yarn as you build the lump.   

Thanks for posting your images, and please continue to let us see how things are going.  You are doing really well.

Barbara

Christine's picture

Hi Christine,

Your yarn looks like a spiraled slub.  A well done combination of techniques. 

Your results look consistent throughout the skein which is great.  I can see well-formed slubs, so you have definitely made a slub single.   Also, it appears as though you plied the slub single with the even single using uneven tension, allowing one to wrap around the other.  If you want to make a simple plied slub yarn, it's important to keep the same amount of tension on both yarns during plying.   I pinch out the twist at the orifice and hold both yarns in the same hand, making sure that I have drawn out the same length of each before I allow the twist to enter.  Doing this results in a basic two-ply yarn between the slubs and the even yarn nestled into the slubs.   If you try the slub again, pay close attention to what your hands are doing during plying.  

In this workshop, we are presenting some basic construction techniques.  Combining them provides opportunities for lots more creativity.   Thanks for letting us have a look!

Making Progress and Marls

I'm delighted to see that as the workshop progresses we are having more and more people joining in, commenting and posting pictures. Virtual workshops rely heavily on feedback and chat, so keep spinning and telling us about your progress. We really do love to hear about your successes and your challenges.

Todays lesson is Gimp. Please be patient with yourselves. It is not easy to achieve a quick success with this yarn. I would also suggest that you spin more than you normally would in your singles. I often feel that I'm just getting the hang of something and I have run out of singles. The first time I spun a gimp yarn, I had about 2 inches of gimp and about 5 yards of handspun that was definitely not gimp but attempts at gimp.


Karen you asked about holding the fibres for a marl yarn. Yes, more practise is always encouraged. When I spin a marl yarn I'm holding the colours side by side in my drafting hand. When I notice that one colour is flowing more than the other small tweaks or pressure with my thumb evens the flow of one colour over another. You are not holding two distinct fibre supplys in one hand, but you could in order to help control the flow of colour in your marl bring your middle finger up inbetween your two colours which might help in keeping your fibres more evenly distributed in your marl.

Looking forward to hearing more. Enjoy your spinning.

Finishing skeins

I have just been admiring all the images which have been posted to the picture gallery.   Thank you for all of your dedicated work and willingness to share.

One thing which we’ve not yet discussed is finishing your yarns.  There are at least two important reasons for taking the time to finish skeins.  First, if you have combined fibres in a novelty construction, you will need to determine what this yarn is going to look like and how it will perform in an item.  Balancing the twist is another issue.  The novelty constructions will yield skeins that hang without any twisting, i.e. relaxed and balanced.  To see how they really are behaving, wet the skeins, roll them in a towel to remove excess moisture and hang loosely over something like a large dowel or piece of PVC pipe.  When they are dry, you will be able to see how the twist is performing. 

Skeins always ask for what they need.  If they twist S, then they want more S twist.  The same follows for Z.  Adjust accordingly by adding or removing twist from the skein.  Sometimes adjusting the twist to balance the yarn will make your yarn look less attractive.  That’s when you need to analyze at what stage the degree of twist needs to be modified.

More thoughts on marl

A few more thoughts re: achieving marled yarn.   Please remember that we each have our own ways of working.  What is perfect for one individual may well be a poor fit for someone else. 

Some suggestions to try when working to achieve marl ...

• Sometimes it helps to put a finger between the two colours when drafting.  This may help to highlight if one is drawing out more quickly than the other.
• Alternatively, concentrate on working with a very open/broad drafting triangle.  
• You may have greater control if you keep all of the twist out of the fibre supply until you have completed the drafting, i.e. a worsted spinning style.

Cheers!

Barbara

Super to hear from you!

I echo Tricia's comments about fibre supply and diameter control. When learning to make marled yarns, we tend to focus on the colour balance/imbalance. That does not leave much time for sorting out fibre that presents drafting challenges. Generally, yarns can only be as good as the fibre preparation will allow. You might want to try working with your best prepared fibre during this learning phase. Also, often students find it helpful to predraft their fibre prior to taking it to the wheel. Not so finely that it drifts away from you during spinning, but enough to facilitate the process. As always, a slower whorl (larger diameter) produces less twist and gives the spinner more time to arrange the fibres in the desired way.

Does this help?

Managing Fibre Diameters

First of all, thank you to Janet and Lindy for taking the plunge and posting. It is very exciting to feel that some conversation is starting.

My instant reaction to your question about managing your fibre diameters while spinning a marl was, practice. With more reflection, my suggestion would be to check to make sure your fibre supply is constant. Check to see if it is always one colour that is suddenly becoming thicker and/or thinner or does it vary from one colour to the other. If it is always one colour then you may be holding one colour a little bit more snugly than the other. You may need to make some minor hand adjustments to stabilize the flow of each colour. Slowing down your wheel and your treadling, may also help you to keep an eye on your fibre supply and the flow of colour into your drafting triangle.

Please let us know if this helps. Posting a picture of your efforts would be great as well.

First postings

It is nice to see posts starting to arrive at the various blogs. If you are taking part in the workshops please do use this facility. Not only will this provide useful feedback to the tutors and organisers, but hopefully will encourage other workshop participants.

Some people may be new to using blogs and some further technical instructions will shortly be placed in FAQs on www.wsdworkshops.org.uk/faq.htm

In your post you might like to comment on:

· how you found out about the workshop

· are you doing it on your own or with a group of friends? (At least one group has hired a church hall for a day to have a more social gathering.)

· did you have all the equipment in your stash or was it easy to obtain

· how far have you got

· have you encountered any problems

· pictures of work in progress would be very welcome because as yet the galleries are rather empty! They should be sent to convenor at wsdworkshops.org.uk (Replace ‘ at ‘ with ‘@’).

More greetings

An additional hello!  Please let us know if there's anything in the lessons that needs further explanation or elaboration, or if there is additional information you would like to help you get started.

We look foward to hearing from you.

Barbara

Good Morning Spinners

I just wanted to post a brief note to say hello and welcome to our workshop. I was thrilled to see that we have some followers, hopefully you are spinning as well. Please feel free to post your questions and comments. We are both looking forward to the next few weeks and all that it may bring. Happy Spinning.

Welcome message

Welcome to the Association of Guilds of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers Spring workshops 2009.

If you have arrived here without visiting the related website please click the link now to see a detailed explanation of how these workshops are being run.

Please feel free to ask the tutors questions or post relevant comments by clicking on the Comment link at the bottom of the relevant post. As noted on the website above all postings will be moderated and thus there may be a short delay before publication.

We would welcome you sending photos of work in progress as soon as possible. Again please see the website above for details of how to do this.

Margaret Parker
Convenor

Spinning Welcome

Welcome to novelty yarns. For the next two weeks, we will be learning and/or renewing our knowledge of ten basic yarn construction techniques.

How are we going to accomplish teaching techniques over the internet? We expect this will happen with patience and humour. Each of the ten lessons will focus on a single construction technique and will give you the basic information you need to start the learning process at your wheel. You may chose to do one, some or all as your time and interest permits. The lessons will be presented on weekdays with some additional images offered on weekends. They will not be posted in order of increasing difficulty, so challenges with one technique will not be likely to cause problems with those which follow.

Please post your questions, joys, discoveries and frustrations with these yarns. We are on the North American side of the Atlantic, so there may be a delay between your queries and our responses. To help us answer your questions effectively, please let us know:

1. the type of fibre you are using (wool, mohair, etc.)

2. how the fibre was prepared (roving, tops, rolags, etc.)

3. wheel manufacturer (Lendrum, Schacht, etc.), and

4. the drive ratio you are using (7:1, 20:1, etc.)

Also, please remember to post images of your yarns. Pictures do a great deal to facilitate communication in this virtual environment.

Take some time to find your fibres, oil your wheel, and find your lazy kates. The fun starts with the first lesson!

Happy Spinning,

Barbara and Tricia

Tutors