Mixing Things up for a Sweater
words and photos by: Johanna Carter
I always admire those who are able to spin mountains of yarn for a big project, ready to knit a wonderful sweater or cardigan. It is a satisfying feeling when you finish all that work, especially if you started with washing and combing the wool or even raising your own sheep.
Mixing spinning and knitting
The typical way to work through a larger project is to spin all the singles first and ply them in a particular order so you get the yarn even throughout the whole project. I don’t have so many bobbins, but my bigger problem is that I am quite impatient and want to get on with knitting once I have an idea. And normally, my brain is full of ideas for fibre work and the limit is the time, as I am a musician and teacher. I can’t sit at the spinning wheel for a long time if I’m not on holiday, so during the school year I mostly knit, and during the holidays I can dye, spin, use my drum carder, and do lots of fibre work. The only time I was able to produce bigger quantities of yarn before I knitted them up was during the Tour de Fleece in the two years during the pandemic, when we did not go on holiday at the beginning of July.
A highly photogenic collection of naturally dyed fibres.
I like to finish knitting one big project like a sweater or cardigan before I start the next one, or at least until I can’t carry it in my bag easily anymore, so I have an excuse to begin the next one. Sometimes it is good to have a second project on the go – I call it mindless knitting, where I don’t have to look very much – which I can keep my hands busy during Zoom or other meetings, which helps me listen.
Mixing colours and fibres
Usually I dye my yarn with plants which I collect in the woods or get from garden flowers. I also use cochineal and indigo, which I buy, to get lots of different colours. I really love the greens and blues I get from dyeing with indigo. I have lots of dyed wool, and all those colours give me inspiration for further projects.
Beautiful greens and blues dyed by the author using indigo and other natural dyes.
Blending the wool on the drum carder I can get even more shades. I like to blend with fibres like silk, alpaca, or plant fibres, and I love sari silk, to get those little bits of colour in my yarn.
Fibres of different types and colours are blended on a drum carder for elegant results.
When I have an idea for the next sweater, I start carding, and then I can begin to spin. Once I have spun enough yarn – say, for one day – I cast on and start knitting, usually top down, so I don’t have to decide too much in advance about length and width.
An idea for the author’s next sweater in the gathering stages.
When I spin on my wheel, I have to sit at home, but while spinning I can read a book or talk to others during online meetings. I also like to spin on my spindles, and that works on a walk, or a museum visit. I take them on holiday as they don’t need much space, and when I spin for a lace shawl, I don’t even need much wool either. At home there are spindles all over the place; I can spin when I am waiting for the kettle to boil, when the computer is slow, when I am cooking. Like that I can make good use of a short time and the yarn still grows.
Knitting as soon as the yarn is spun helps the author complete sweater projects in a timely manner.
I can take my knitting almost everywhere, which is why I don’t want to wait to get started until I have spun all the yarn for a whole sweater. I knit at home, on the bus or train. The only thing I have to make sure of is to be one step ahead with the yarn.
I love to knit Fair Isle sweaters. My favourite method is to use only one bobbin, which I don’t even fill, because I need smaller quantities of lots of colours. Then I wind a ply ball and ply it on itself. For that I put my thumb through the ball, so I can tension the two singles with my fingers and they don’t get tangled, as long as my thumb (or a cardboard roll or a pencil) stays in the middle. I don’t have any leftovers from plying, and it is quick when I suddenly need more yarn.
Several charming sweaters dyed, spun, and knit by the author.
I have never had problems with the yarn not being consistent enough throughout a project. I just know what yarn I want and my fingers seem to remember what to do. I am sure it is good advice to have a little card tied to the spinning wheel with a bit of the singles you are aiming for, so you can check and make sure you are spinning a consistent yarn.
Mixing breeds
There are so many different breeds, but some of my favourites are Shetland, BFL, and Jämtland – a Swedish breed. After dyeing them, I often forget what I have used, so when I do a new project it often turns out that I have used different breeds and fibres just to get the right colour. For the Fair Isle knitting I want to juggle lots of colours, which is more important to me than making a sweater out of only one breed.
Recently I made a pullover for my husband using about 12 different breeds and colours, even mixing short and long draw. For me it was a breed experiment and a way to use up lots of smaller quantities of wool I had in my stash. For that sweater I used combed top without blending.
Mixing in knitting during the spinning process is a wonderful way for a spinner to avoid being overwhelmed during a sweater project.
My feeling is that some people don’t dare to start spinning for a bigger project because they get overwhelmed by the quantity they have to spin and then all the knitting there is to do, especially when you want to spin the yarn entirely on spindles. Mixing the spinning and knitting for the same project is more interesting; you get more variety and more freedom to choose what you want to do next as long as you don’t run out of yarn. It breaks the project down into smaller, less daunting parts. The only thing you might want to plan is to have enough fibre at the start, but even that is not necessary, there is always a sheep growing more wool.
Lofty Yarn Spun from Finger-Opened Locks
words and photos by Donna Kay
I love preparing fiber – whether it is handcombing lustrous locks or carding puffy rolags. But sometimes we forget about the oldest tools of all: our hands. Consider getting “back to the sheep” and spinning hand-prepared (literally) locks into a rustic lofty yarn. It is a fitting and extremely satisfying method of preparing and spinning a primitive-type fleece. There’s something special about the way the individual character of the two coats can be highlighted in one yarn.
Choosing a fleece
Dual-coated sheep produce fleeces with amazing variation in character and color. Breeds I have had the pleasure to work with include Icelandic, Shetland, and Norwegian Spelsau, and each has something wonderful to offer. When choosing a fleece to spin from the lock, I consider the qualities I want for my project. Locks with more undercoat than outercoat spin up into a soft, lofty yarn. Locks with dominant or long outercoat produce a thinner and denser yarn.
Spinning from the lock also allows for random or controlled color placement. I can choose a solid color or a variation since the inner and outer coats are often different. For an article of clothing, I look for open, VM-free locks with dense, fluffy undercoat and relatively silky and flexible outercoat. Fleeces with a coarse outercoat are wonderful but better used for rugs and other hardwearing pieces. (Note: the longest and coarsest outercoat fibers can easily be removed when preparing the locks for spinning.)
Primitive sheep exhibit wide variations of length and diameter within the fleece, so I sort the fleece into sections of similar locks to achieve a consistent yarn. The sides and shoulder will often be the closest in length and diameter and often the softest outercoat. The neck, back, and britch areas tend to be shorter and/or coarser and are set aside for other uses. Locks with excess sun damage, scurf, kemp and imbedded VM are discarded.
Preparation
A freshly shorn fleece can be prepared and spun in the grease. Locks from a fleece that has been stored unwashed will not open as easily and the drafting will be uneven. To prepare a low-grease fleece, I often use a cold water soak to remove the dirt and suint. Dual-coated fleeces wash easily and often require only one wash. I am careful not to use too much detergent or the fiber can feel harsh and dried out. Locks are placed in plastic mesh baskets, maintaining lock formation, and then washed and rinsed in hot water. Felting happens easily with primitive fleeces, so keep handling to a minimum.
I use my fingers to open up the cut ends of the locks and remove any loose or felted bits. These can resemble second cuts but usually are the immature beginning of the next year’s fleece if the shearing took place after the coats natural rise in the spring. For smoother, consistent yarns, I keep the lock formation intact, leaving the tip as is. Another option is to open the locks completely into a cloud of fibers.
Spinning
My Majacraft Suzie is put to good use for spinning this yarn. It is equipped with a delta orifice, a large open ceramic hook, and scotch tension. There is nothing for errant tails to get snagged on, and the scotch tension allows me to quickly adjust the take up so the yarn winds on smoothly. For yarns with a soft twist, I want 1-1/2 to 2-1/2 twists per inch with a twist angle between 10 and 20 degrees. For the yarns shown in the photos, I used a of 4.5:1 ratio with a light take up. A rhythm of drafting 1x per treadle gave me the amount of twist I wanted. The low angle of twist ensures that the finished yarns will be light but strong thanks to the longer outercoat fibers acting like glue holding everything together. These worsted to bulky weight yarns contain a good mix of both outercoat and undercoat.
To spin from the lock I hold a small handful lightly in my fiber hand and draft from the cut end using a backwards woolen draft. I pinch the end of the twist with my forward hand as I draft back half the length of the undercoat with my fiber hand. My fingers open, releasing the twist to capture the newly drafted fibers. When a small amount of undercoat remains in my hand, I add a new supply of locks, joining undercoat to undercoat so as to maintain the mix of fibers and diameter. This method affords me some control and consistency, but these yarns certainly display individual character! For the smoothest yarn I draft both coats together as evenly as possible. If I want texture in the form of “tails” I concentrate on drafting the undercoat, allowing the outercoat to slip through my fingers and wrap around the outside of the drafted fibers. It is important to relax and let go, allowing the lumps and bumps to enter the yarn. If at any point drafting becomes difficult, I make sure I am not holding the fiber too firmly.
When spinning from the cloud, it is a little harder to maintain consistency. I use a short backward or a supported long draw. Holding a good-sized handful of fiber gives me the best results. The yarn has a lot of variation in size and texture and works well for a rustic knit item or as weft in a woven piece.
A worsted draft creates a denser yarn because the fibers are smoothed and compressed as they are drafted. It seems counterintuitive, but this draft actually accentuates the lumps, creating a noticeably thick and thin yarn that has a firmer hand. I usually do not use this draft unless it is to be used as warp yarn.
After spinning a few locks, I stop and create a plyback sample by pulling a length of yarn off the side of the bobbin and letting it ply back on itself. Am I happy with the diameter and amount of twist? If so, I spin enough to make a small sample of my intended yarn whether single or plied and finish it before evaluating. Do I want to change something? My options include tweaking my drafting method, the ratio of the wheel or the amount of fiber I have in my hand.
Finishing
I soak the skeins with a small amount of detergent in warm water, gently squeeze out the water, “whuz” it, and lay it flat to dry. I prefer not to agitate, use hot/cold rinses, or “thwack” since these methods diminish the loft of the undercoat. As the final step, I use steam to set the twist and stabilize the yarn. These yarns transform when washed! Held in place by the outercoat with a low amount of twist, the disorganized crimp of the undercoat has room to bloom, creating a contrast to the smoother outercoat. The finished diameter of the yarn will vary from fleece to fleece depending on the percentage of undercoat vs. outercoat in the locks. Yarns with a higher percentage of undercoat will be thicker with more loft.
The white yarn contains a larger percent of undercoat that bloomed and shortened as the yarn dried.
The long outercoat of the natural-colored locks was spun into a low-twist singles yarn that showcased the color variations. As the amount of outercoat increases, the denser the yarn will be. Yarns spun from the lock are individual and are a true reflection of these unique fleeces!
Donna Kay is a knitter, spinner, designer, instructor, and shepherd, often all in the same day. Her home is a farm in New Hampshire that she shares with her husband and an assortment of livestock. She spins as much as she can, teaches here and there, and designs for her company, Tree of Life Designs. You can find her on Ravelry as treeoflife.
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Book Review: The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook
reviewed by Sukrita Mahon
If you have been spinning for any length of time, you have probably heard of The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook by Carol Ekarius and Deborah Robson or maybe own it yourself. If not, you probably should – it’s a collection of over 200 varieties of fibre from around the world, methodically catalogued. Each fibre is spun, usually using different preparations, and its characteristics explained: how it spins up, how it takes dye, what it’s best used for. There is so much diversity in types, textures, and how they all behave that each could be an in-depth study on its own.
As a spinner, breed studies truly excite me because it’s such a tactile experience and so different every time. It’s hard to articulate certain aspects because fibres can have seemingly conflicting characteristics, like shiny and silk-like yet coarse; poufy and springy but also rope-like if spun a certain way. Because of this, I am always looking to explore breeds that are new to me and even spin the same one a lot to become more familiar with it.
When other people find out that you spin, it’s quite common to be offered bags of raw fleece; I tend to decline most alpaca but love to receive wool. Although alpaca is much more common in my area, it tends to be dustier and more difficult to work with when it’s full of second cuts, for example. For some reason I find that I don’t mind doing some extra work to salvage wool because it usually comes out well after a good scour. So when I was given a mystery bag of wool from a local farm, I sought the help of this book to identify the sheep breed. I won’t lie, there are probably easier ways of identifying wool – like going to the source and finding out or asking someone who is more experienced – but this was a nice challenge that gave me an excuse to flip through a beautiful book. How could I resist? The book could also be helpful if you have a bad memory for breed names or just forget to label your wool.
Right out of the bag, my mystery wool was yellowed, fluffy, and full of second cuts that were quite careless, so it was likely the sheep weren’t reared for their wool. To go about identifying it, I tried to answer specific questions: Does it feel more hairy or woolly? Is it soft, coarse, or somewhere in-between? Is it greasy/does it seem to have a lot of lanolin content? Is there a noticeable or visible crimp in the fibre? What do the tips look like? This isn’t a complete list but should give you enough to start searching.
In my case, the wool felt springy, not at all like hair, and perhaps downy, although I was a little vague on what that term meant. It wasn’t especially coarse, but not soft. I didn’t think it had the kind of greasiness of Merino or even some Corriedale. It had no visible crimp, and the ends were, for lack of a better word, sort of tippy. This is in contrast to, say, Corriedale which often has blunt tips, or Border Leicester, which has more pronounced tips.
Starting in the Down section of the book, I could immediately see a resemblance. Even the more crimpy down breeds had a similar kind of ‘feel’ to this wool. It helped a lot that the photos are so clear and detailed, with multiple samples. Here it’s evident that Cheviot has more crimp and tippiness compared to my wool.
The Suffolk seemed to be a good match because it had the same kind of reddish brown tint in the raw sample, which I initially thought was feces. One of the samples pictured in the book shows much more crimp, and the other has barely any. After scouring they come out bright white, with a bit of tippiness remaining, which is what I found for my wool as well.
The other breed that came close in similarity was Texel. The colour of the raw wool is slightly different, but the textures and finished wool are so similar that it could easily have been this breed.
I suspected it wasn’t Texel because Suffolk is much more common in this area, in addition to the odd red tinge that none of the other raw samples seemed to have. Both Suffolk and Texel are primarily bred for their meat, so the wool is often discarded. According to the book, though, where handspinners are concerned, there are no disadvantages and both make excellent, warm yarn and garments.
Fortunately, I was able to get in touch with the person who gave me the wool to ask if they knew what breed it came from. They confirmed it was Suffolk, and you can imagine how excited I was to hear that. I also learned that the sheep were named Lamb and Chop, which is apparently a common set of names for sheep in Australia.
Needless to say, I think all spinners should have access to this book; it’s such a treasure. The only negative I have to say about it is that it’s not a complete catalogue of all the sheep breeds on the planet; it’s mainly focused on the ones known in the Americas, Europe, and Australia, so if you live in Asia or Africa, it may not be as helpful. I do hold out hope that we will get more editions in the future as interest in handspinning and sustainable farming grows.
5/5
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Mood: Summer 2022 – The Mix Issue
Mix Moodboard (Summer 2022)
Much of the time we’re happy spinning along doing our regular thing, but sometimes we just want to mix it up! What about you? What do you like to mix up in your spinning?
Do you mix fiber, preparation, draft, color, types of yarn, or types of crafts? If you do, we want to hear about it. Do you mix woolen and worsted in your spinning? Between preparation and draft? What about mixing woolen and worsted plies? Why would you do it? How does it look and feel? What do you make with it?
What are your favorite fiber blends and do you have special ways of spinning them? Do you make your own blends? What process do you use to create a new or unique blend? Do some breeds mix better than others? How do you sample your blends? How do you keep track? Are there fiber-mixing tools you use that you can’t do without?
Have you experimented with mixing twist direction in singles or ply? What did you find out? What effect does reversing direction have on yarn and cloth? What about mixing dye to create unique colors in dyes? How do you plan? How do you keep track?
Do you have tips on dyeing blends that are mixtures of animal, plant, or synthetic? Have you mixed natural and chemical dyes in a single yarn? What was the result? Do you mix fibers or colors at the wheel? How does it look? Why do you choose this method over carding or combing? Are you a shepherd? How do you choose which breeds to mix for your flock? What has been your greatest success? Do you know the history of a now-favorite breed that started as a mix of 2 classic breeds?
We’re looking for patterns that mix it up, too: weaving with some knitting, or knitting with some crochet, or adding layers of handspun as embellishments. Anything that mixes this and that, we want to hear about it!
If you can help answer any of these questions or have a good idea for an article, please let us know! If you’ve got an idea for a fantastic project, let us know that too! Whether it’s your first time proposing an article or your 100th, we want to hear from you!
Submit your ideas here
Proposals of articles and projects are due by June 1, 2021. We’ll get back to you in July, and final pieces are due December 1, 2021.
PLY Magazine believes that Black lives matter, as well as LBGTQI+ lives. Those most vulnerable and persecuted in our communities deserve our love and support. Please be good to each other.
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