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.
Ask Jacey #2: Margo is too twisted
This month, Margo asks, “How do you control overtwisting and setting the take up on a scotch tension?”
Well, Margo, this is a super common question. Overtwisting is something that happens to everyone, both in the beginning, the middle, and well into our spinning careers. Honestly, every time I switch to an unfamiliar spinning implement or fiber, I overtwist (if I don’t undertwist; point is, I rarely hit the right level of twist immediately). So let’s talk about it.
One of the most popular ways to decrease twist is to adjust your scotch tension to pull in the yarn quicker and with more force; in other words, want less twist, turn up that tension!
And that will work, but – I don’t suggest it be the first thing you do. You see, it’s my experience that many spinners use too much tension already. Once you turn up your tension enough that you have to grip your yarn to keep it from flying onto your wheel, you’ve lost control. You can no longer spin the yarn you want to spin and you’re going to have crampy fingers to boot. There is a huge spectrum of uptakes that are possible, from zilch all the way to oh my, are my knuckles usually that pale? However, the workable range of uptakes is so much smaller than the possible range.
The workable range ranges from zilch to oh, I think I can feel it…oh wait no…oh yeah there it is. If your wheel is pulling on your yarn, you’re using too much uptake. If your forward hand is cramping, you’re using too much uptake. If your scotch tension spring is sprung, you’re using too much uptake. If you think you might be using too much uptake, you’re using too much uptake. If you’re reading this, you’re using too much uptake. Okay, not really, but if you can use less and still have the yarn you’re spinning slide gracefully into the orifice, give it a try. If you are using too much, decreasing it will give you a more comfortable spin (once you get used to it) and you will gain more control over your fiber and drafting.
How do you figure out the right tension? My advice is to set yourself up to spin your yarn with your scotch tension totally loose and light, so light that it doesn’t pull in your yarn AT ALL. Now slowly increase the tension until it barely starts to move toward the orifice. Now just a bit more so your wheel takes exactly the yarn you spin but doesn’t try to make you give more than you’ve already spun. Yes, your wheel should accept but not take. That’s the best tension for that yarn. When you change the grist of the yarn you’re spinning, your tension will need adjustment too. For instance, if you decide to spin a thicker yarn, you’ll need more uptake. That’s because a thicker yarn is heftier and the wheel needs to pull harder to accept it. However, it shouldn’t feel harder to you and your drafting hands; it should feel the same to you. The opposite is true if you go to spin a thinner yarn, it’s lighter and the wheel needs to work less hard to pull that thin little strand in, so decreasing the uptake should feel the same to your hands (notice if you left it the same, the wheel is now pulling the yarn from you instead of just accepting it).
Now that you’ve got your tension adjusted and I’ve probably scared you away from cranking your uptake way up, this is how increasing uptake can work to decrease twist in your yarn (which is what you asked about, Margo). It works like this – the longer your yarn hangs about in front of your orifice, the more chances it has to pick up twist, much like the longer a teenager hangs about in front of a convenient store, the more chances said teenager has of picking up something even less desirable than too-much-twist. Same same. The quicker your yarn zips through and onto your bobbin, the less twisted it will be.
But before you do that, try these things first! Choose a big pulley (this is often called a whorl). The bigger you choose, the less twist each treadle will put in your yarn. The next thing I’ll suggest is likely the easiest to describe and hardest to do. As spinners, heck, as humans, we have this thing called muscle memory. It’s both a blessing and a curse. It makes better spinners out of us, allowing us to just sit and spin without having to remember how to draft or think about our treadling. The drawback is when we want to change what our muscles have memorized, they sometimes sneak back into doing what they remember. Judith MacKenzie calls it our lizard brain. Our lizard brain dupes and double crosses us. However, if you can manage it, and I know you can, adjusting your body is a powerful tool on the journey to creating the yarn you want. If you want less twist in your yarn there are two things your body can do: slow down your feet or speed up your hands. You can do either or both in varying degrees. Of course, in adjusting your body, you will only gather less twist if you keep the diameter of your yarn the same. If you let your lizard brain lead you, your yarn will likely get a bit thicker because a spinner’s lizard brain knows that a thicker yarn requires less twist and so that’s what a lizard brain wants to make. But if you keep your yarn the same diameter as before you slowed your feet/sped your hands, you won’t be able to help but to get less twist.
Of course, you don’t have to choose just one or the other. Choose them all! Yep, you can cast off your lizard brain, replace it with a gear-head and pick a pulley the size of Australia, grow sloth feet and demon hands, and spin a yarn that would make a pencil roving blush.
And if that doesn’t work, you can increase your tension/uptake – but just a bit.
Here’s a video of Jacey demonstrating and rambling.
Do you have a question you’d like to ask Jacey? Fill out the form and maybe your question will be the one Jacey answers next!
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Separating a Dual-Coated Fleece Using Only Your Hands
words by Jacqueline Harp and photos by Joseph Harp
When a fiber artist chooses to separate and process a dual-coated fleece by hand, it is like unlocking two fleeces from one. A dual-coated fleece is an intertwined combination of a short-stapled, soft, downy undercoat and a protective, longer-stapled, coarser, hair-like outercoat. Once these integrated coats are separated, you will have two very different fibers requiring different preparation and spinning techniques, which will result in two very different yarns. One yarn is going to be airy, woolen, and softer and can be worn next to the skin. The other yarn is heavier, worsted, and tougher and can be made into outerwear.
Interestingly, in industrial textile milling, the process of mechanically separating dual-coated fleeces is known as “dehairing” or “fiber separation.” A mill utilizes a dehairing machine to divide a fleece’s outercoat from the undercoat. The mill will then use the newly separated undercoat to produce soft knitting yarns while using the outercoat for yarn durable enough for rug making. Typical mills, however, only take large batches of fleece – usually hundreds of pounds. Even an artisanal mill will have a minimum order requirement. A handspinner is generally working with a single fleece, which doesn’t meet the large thresholds for mill processing. Sending a small order of fleece to be “dehaired” at a mill could be cost prohibitive.
The good news
From the comfort of your own home or studio, you can easily separate a dual-coated fleece using the most basic fiber processing tool known to humanity – your hands. Fiber tools such as combs, carders, flickers, or hackles can be used to separate a dual-coated fleece, but not all fiber artists will have these items readily available. If you don’t work with raw fleeces often, you may not want to invest in hand tools you will only use occasionally. Here is how to separate your dual-coated fleece, in four easy steps, using only your hands:
1) Take an individual lock of wool and secure the cut end of the lock between your thumb and index finger.
2) With your other hand, pinch or wrap the tip of the lock between your fingers.
3) Once your lock is in this position, hold the cut end firmly while you pull the tip away from the base of the lock until you have pulled the lock completely apart. This may happen with a single pull or you may need to repeatedly and gently tug the tip several times to separate the outercoat from undercoat.
4) Repeat steps 1–3 until you have the desired amount of separated fibers.
It is a simple process, and your technique will improve with practice. Start slowly until you get the feel for it. The instructions work for both left and right handers.
Additional tips
Let’s start with an easy tip. Make sure to set up containers for the separated locks before you start. You want to avoid undoing your efforts.
Make sure your work area is well-ventilated and easy to clean. Even washed locks can still contain vegetable matter and dust that can be inhaled and tracked around. By anticipating the need to clean up after the process, you can aim to make less of a mess in the first place.
Depending on personal preference, you can hand-separate raw locks or washed locks with equal success. Raw locks will still contain lanolin, which can be a bit smelly and greasy, but the lanolin makes the fibers more slippery and therefore easier to pull apart by hand. The fibers from the separated raw locks can be washed later using your preferred fleece scouring method. Washed locks, on the other hand, will be clean and smell nicer but can be a bit harder to separate because the slipperiness caused by the lanolin is gone.
If your locks (washed or raw) have started to felt, don’t panic! There is still a chance for the locks to be hand-separated successfully if you carefully tease the lock apart. Gently tugging and pulling the ends of the felting lock should release the fibers from each other enough to be separated.
Final thoughts
Dual-coated sheep breeds can be found all over the world. Shetland, Icelandic, Karakul, Navajo-Churro, and Soay are five breeds of dual-coated sheep whose fleeces are relativity easy to acquire from North American flocks. To demonstrate the hand-separation process, I used lovely milk-chocolate locks from a dual-coated Icelandic yearling-ewe fleece sourced from North America. The technique for separating dual-coated fibers explained here can be used for other non-sheep, fiber-producing, dual-coated animals, such as qiviut, bison, yak, and cashmere goat.
A dual-coated fleece has much to offer to those looking for a project that can inspire and surprise. It is rewarding to take a raw fleece to an unusual and unexplored place. So what are you waiting for? Start towards the next destination in your fiber arts journey.
Jacqueline Harp is a freelance writer and multimedia fiber artist who spins, felts, weaves, crochets, and knits in every spare moment possible. She is also a certified Master Sorter of Wool Fibers through the State Univ. of N.Y. (Cobleskill) Sorter-Grader-Classer (SGC) Program. Her Instagram handle is @foreverfiberarts.
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.
References from Spring 2021 issue
Two of the articles in the Spring 2021 issue (Double-coated) contained a number of helpful references.
References from “What Is Primitive? What Is Double-Coated?” by Deborah Robson
Christiansen, Carol Anne. “Primitive Wool and Early Textile Production in Shetland,” diss.,
University of Manchester, 2003.
Dýrmundsson, Ólafur R. “Four–Hornedness: A Rare Peculiarity Still Found in Icelandic Sheep.”
The Icelandic Sheep Breeders of North America Newsletter 9, no. 4 (2005): 6–8.
Dýrmundsson, Ólafur R., and R. Niznikowski. “North European Short-tailed Breeds of Sheep:
A Review.” Animal 4 (2010), 1275–82.
Elwes, Henry John. Guide to the Primitive Breeds of Sheep and Their Crosses on Exhibition at
the Royal Agricultural Society’s Show, Bristol, 1913, with Notes on the Management of Park Sheep in England and the Possible Advantages of Crossing Them with Improved Breeds. (No location cited): Rare Breeds Survival Trust, [1913] 1983.
___. “Notes on the Primitive Breeds of Sheep in Scotland.” The Scottish Naturalist 2 (1912): 25–
32.
Falck, Diane. “Understanding Primitive Fleece.” In Timeless Coloured Sheep, edited by Dawie
du Toit, 92–96. Petersberg, Germany: Michael Imhof Verlag, 2014.
Gleba, Margarita. “From Textiles to Sheep: Investigating Wool Fibre Development in Pre-
Roman Italy Using Scanning Electron Microscopy (Sem).” Journal of Archaeological Science 39, no. 12 (2012): 3643–61.
Noddle, Barbara A., and Michael Lawson Ryder. “Primitive Sheep in the Aran Islands.” Journal
of Archaeological Science 1, no. 1 (1974): 109–12.
Ryder, Michael Lawson. “Fleece Evolution in Domestic Sheep.” Nature 204, no. 495 (1964):
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___. “Follicle Arrangement in Skin from Wild Sheep, Primitive Domestic Sheep and in
Parchment.” Nature 182, no. 5638 (1958): 781–83.
___. “Seasonal Fleece Changes in Some Cheviot Sheep.” Journal of Agricultural Science,
Cambridge 83 (1974): 93–99.
___. “A Survey of European Primitive Breeds of Sheep.” Annales de génétique et de sélection
animale (Ann. Genet. Sel. anim) 13, no. 4 (1981): 381–418.
___. “Why Do Animals Moult?” New Scientist 13, no. 272 (1962): 266–69.
Wade-Martins, Peter. Black Faces: A History of East Anglian Sheep Breeds. Ashford, Kent,
England: Norfolk Museums Service in association with Geerings of Ashford, 1993.
References from “Wool, Hair, and Kemp” by Deborah Robson
Alderson, Lawrence. http://www.lawrencealderson.com/ (accessed May 4, 2020).
American Sheep Industry Association. Sheep Production Handbook. Englewood, CO: American
Sheep Industry Association, 2015.
ASTM International. Standard Terminology Relating to Textiles, D 123-00b. West
Conshohocken, PA: ASTM International, 2000.
Christiansen, Carol Anne. “Primitive Wool and Early Textile Production in Shetland,” diss.,
University of Manchester, 2003.
Porter, Valerie, Lawrence Alderson, and Stephen J. G. Hall. Mason’s World Encyclopedia of
Livestock Breeds and Breeding, Volumes 1 & 2. Wallingford and Boston: CABI, 2016.
Ryder, Michael L. “Wool of the 14th Century BC from Tell El-Amarna, Egypt.” Nature 240, no.
5380 (1972): 355–56.
Ryder, Michael L., and Stuart Kimbell Stephenson. Wool Growth. London and New York:
Academic Press, 1968.
Scobie, D. R., A. R. Bray, and N. C. Merrick. “Medullation and Average Fibre Diameter Vary
Independently in the Wool of Romney Sheep.” New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research 41, no. 1 (1998): 101–10.
Scobie, D. R., J. L. Woods, and D. B. Baird. “Seasonal and Between Sheep Differences in
Medullation of Wool Fibres.” Proceedings of the New Zealand Society of Animal Production 53 (1993): 319–22.
Wilson, J. F. “The Medullated Wool Fiber.” Hilgardia: A Journal of Agricultural Science (California
Agricultural Experiment Station) 4, no. 5 (1929): 135–52.
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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