Lazy, Many, Mini- Skeins!

Because my kids were so well- behaved today, I ended up getting more done that I had hoped…

What I want to do is make several, little skeins for use as dye samples. I have Queen Anne’s Lace, and Goldenrod dye stock left over from summer- as well as onion skins, coffee grounds saved- and some red cabbage to use as dye stuffs.

Also, there is snow on the ground that can be gathered and used as my water (extraction) bath.

My problem is that I have a lot of wheels (12)- most all have one project or another on their bobbins. This means that I rarely have any bobbins.

Now, usually, when I want to ply, I do so with care- investing time and energy into the project so that I can feel proud of my results. But not today.

Today I looked around at my wheels (and their bobbins) and noticed that most of them had junk yarn on them. This is because I have a few newer wheels and, when I am first getting to know I wheel, I use nasty, cheap fiber- rather than nice, expensive fiber. This makes the process relaxing and fun- rather than scary and stressful.

Today, though, my Lendrum also had nasty fiber- yarn on it because I had been having tension issues that needed resolved. Obviously, I used garbage yarn for this. However, once I resolved the issue, I just couldn’t stop spinning- and so I had over half a bobbin of junk yarn on my Lendrum.

The other wheel I was eyeballing was my Swiss lateral wheel- the bobbin was almost full and I just knew that I’d want to spin on her later tonight…

So, being the lazy person I am, I decided not to use a Kate. I also decided that this plied yarn did not have to be fabulous, as it would be the final color that was important- not the quality of the yarn. Last, the yarn singles needed to be plied into several mini- skeins.

Instead of using a Kate, I plied right from my wheels. When it came to the Lendrum, I was just feeling lazy. With regards to the Swiss lateral, I actually didn’t want to remove the bobbin, as (1) it would have been a pain in the butt to put back on; and (2) I find that it’s best not to mess with antique bobbins/ pulleys unless one absolutely has to.  

I removed the drive band from the Lendrum, and removed the drive band from the bobbin on the Swiss lateral- while preparing my trust Ashford Traveller for plying.

The Lendrum bobbin was under a bit of tension, while the Swiss Lateral was not. I did put the yarn through the hole at the end of the metal flyer, though, which seemed to tension it a bit.

I used acrylic yarn as my leader because that was what I had laying around- and this post is all about being lazy, right?

I began plying and, after a few yards (I just measured in my head), I tied some leader yarn onto my yarn and plied it along with my singles for a bit (about a yard) and then stopped and tied it (again) to my plied singles. I cut it off and began plying as usual. I repeated this several times until I came to the end of the yarn on the Lendrum.

I have to say that I must have been quite a sight because all five of my children were standing around me- gawking. They had lots of questions like: why is there “string” connecting those wheels to that wheel? Are you spinning on three wheels? They were extremely curious- and most of them watched until I was done- which means that what I was doing was extremely interesting!

I used my niddy- noddy and began wrapping my yarn around it- using only one side at a time. When I came to the leader, I tied it off, cut it, and tied the ends together (as usual). I did this for all of my yarn/ leader segments and, voila! I had several mini- skeins.

Now, if I had a smaller niddy- noddy, this would have worked out better but, like so many other spinner, I used what I had.

NB: the resulting plied yarn is not pretty… it is extremely unbalanced as one bobbin had lace- weight, while the other had sport- weight on it. Oh well…

My hope is that, once the twist is set, and the yarn is hung (under tension) to dry, it will straighten out a bit.

Why wash/ rinse it? Why not just dye it while setting the twist?

Because it is garbage yarn of unknown- and of questionable origin. I don’t know what was on it and what was been done to it before it was given to me. I don’t want anything to interfere with my dyeing experiments- and so I am starting off with a clean slate- or clean yarn, rather.

Also, in the squirrely state it is in, I don’t want it to become a tangled mess in the (barely) simmering dye bath.