Part two of my series “Spinning for a Project” (see Part One) and second post of the day, this one being about designing the wool blend for the hand spun yarn, so eventually knit into a future project. A blend which I’m calling “English Rose Tweed” for the Malabrigo colorway’s namesake. These are the wools I am blending all together to make 500g of yarn, the amount I forecast needing to knit a sweater. (Note: So much of this fiber was a gift to me from “rescue spinners” after the wildfire, when I was given my Ashford Traditional wheel from L. ) When recently I thought to try the Malabrigo Nube roving, I chose “English Rose” and thought that I really wanted to try doing a blend with it with natural undyed roving.
I have weighed off each wool color into ten segments each, to put each together into ten 50g batches to do incrementally, but I wanted to share the recipe after the 1st blend, so I could refer to it for the rest of the batches, and so I could do a test spin-up on the first blending before proceeding.
From these…
to these….
to these…
In the next post you will see these rolags all spun up! I may not like the results after the first 50g test and add a color to continue, but stay tuned to find out if these are a keeper. Also you can see all posts in my Spinning for A Project series.
Okay, here’s what I did…
♣ ♣ ♣
Techy stuff for English Rose Tweed…
- I need 500g for a sweater project; using 113g Malabrigo Nube (roving) in English Rose colorway, along with 122 g of grey merino, 200g mixed brown & natural wool (unknown breed) and 65g white cormo.
- 500g of wool blend divides into ten 50g batches, so using a gram scale, I divided all into equal 10 segments.
Note: With hand-dyed braid of Malabrigo Nube “English Rose”, I decided to keep a consistent color ‘bookmatch’ by splitting the dyed braid along the length into 5 segments, then each of those long skinny segments more easily in half, folded end to end and pulled apart at center. Otherwise, pulling apart the dyed roving when full thickness it was seriously hard (being 100% Merino), and should never ever be considered to cut it.
- Layered very thinly one color at a time, alternately. using this technique: Blending for tweed simplified
- Lifted batt, and sectioned into strips of four, to photograph the transition wool rolls.
- I took the wool and layered again, then photographed rolls again.
- Layered wool rolls once more and drew off rolags.
- I’m naming this colorway blend ” English Rose Tweed “
- See ALL color blending experiments & recipes archived in Tweed Chronicles
(( Click 1st image in mosaic to go to slideshow with commentary. ))
Jenjoyce Design 
Wow!
Simply… wow!
Much love
A Missing in Action Karin.
Karin, such an endeavor, isn’t it? I am so glad you’re a spinner now, and so I inspired to make meaty & somewhat knowledgeable posts for ‘the audience’ out there who are interested. It then feeds back to me and I get inspired all over again. Its been 25 years since I spun for a sweater, and I am overwhelmed all over again! Thank you for tuning in when you can,
xx
I am loving you spinning posts. I appreciate them enormously.
My thoughts have been haphazardly sparking around quantities of fibre required for specific projects.
I bought 1kilo and 700 grams of 2 lots of roving/sliver that I loved (and were suitable for a beginner). I figured these two quantities would give me the option to spin up a jumper amount.
But it was all guess work and instinct.
I am your company of my spinning journey. Thank you so much.
I am “close” to having sufficient hand-spun for a jumper. I am quietly proud and excited. The yarn has a beautiful slub quality and I am leaving it undyed as I love its snowy white purity.
I have 2 ultra-fine Merino fleeces (16 micron). They are from “show” fleeces so have minimal VM (they are a little creamy).
I would love to send you some fibre from country local to my beloved ghost-town…. if you would like some.
Much love
Karin
Karin, I am ecstatic you are enjoying my pithy posts about spinning. As I once said a few spinning posts ago, I’m not much of a spinner, but (like you?) am mostly a colorist when it comes to dyed fiber, I think I really love the blending most of all. If you send me some fiber from your beloved ghost-town, I would most certainly enjoy that, and how could you think for a second that I wouldn’t? (( just a taste, you know how the postage is! )) 🙂 Love Bunches back to you!
ps, oh, and you might want to give the post another read, as I noticed a few badly written parts that were even in error, and now its all squared away.
Great! I am actually off to the Ghost-town next week. I will arrive smack bang in the middle of shearing. Yay!
If you send me your address (Ravelry message??) I will pack some up on my return.
Australian postage isn’t too evil.
Fabulous!!!!
So wonderful!!!
Sarah! I am really excited to spin-to-knit a sweater, but am thinking, as its so much wool, it better be exactly right! If I don’t love the spun results, after my first 50g trial (the blended rolags you see here) I will go back and add more white, or cut the color intensity with a little turquoise, or something radical and scary. lol! xx
Which would be an excellent topic for Part Three, wouldn’t it? 🙂
Your rolags are so great! I am sure they will make lovely yarn. I spun yarn for a sweater once. I made so much extra, I could almost make two! Sadly it is pretty distinctive, so I don’t need two of the same stuff!
Had you considered over-dying the left-overs? xx
I hadn’t… I never thought of that! Maybe I will… but it’s so pretty as it is….
It must be nice … just to have it too. Especially if you have a sweater you made from it.
I do still love looking at it. 😉 and I think about what I can make for someone else with it, but as yet I haven’t hit on the perfect pattern for the perfect person. I do have it listed on my ravelry destash page at a pretty high price, so maybe it will turn into some other yarn for a project. Meanwhile, it’s pretty. 😊
Oh those rolags; let me tell you, they’re way too tight and dense that I am having trouble spinning them. I think I need to hunt down an even larger pair of aluminum straight needles to use in pulling the fiber off of the carding cloth, because for some reason it is not loosening up. Of course, I could practice more, and pull less, and lift more. Oh bother… so much to learn in doing.
So very much to learn! I hope by now you have sorted it out. Because they really are lovely!