Category: Tweed Chronicles

Wool and silk are winners . . . cotton and wool are winners . . . and cotton and silk are winners . . . so wouldn’t it go without saying that wool, silk, and cotton would be amazing? Ever since studying the Longthread Media instruction video Spinning Wild & Unusual Silk I’ve just been unleashed into new territory.

♣ Blending Notes ♣ 

• Wool: Merino Top Wool from Paradise Fibers, color Terracotta, approx 33%
• Cotton: Combed Cotton Roving Top from Living Dreams Yarn, color Mauve, approx 33%
• Silk: Eri Silk roving from Living Dreams , color natural yellow, approx 33%

Moving swiftly over the calendar days of Summer, one by one I have been pairing up combinations, and have settled on some favorites, but now I’m on to blends of three different fibers & colors. As for the blends with the flax short fibers, I will have to further experiment, because although they create a rustic feel, there is a scratchiness, almost like guard hairs, occasionally a stray stiff flax fiber will not spin into the single but stick out and assert itself. The question is; how will this be after washing, and maybe it is fine for some things, which of course, I will have to explore. The other question is; how is it with all of the different colors I’m using (which the camera is just not picking up) the allover effect that I keep creating is variations of terracotta color in the finish?

♣ Blending Notes ♣ 

• Wool: Merino Top from The Spinnery , color Olive, approx 33%
• Silk: Mulberry silk roving from The Woolery, color Orchid Pink, approx 33%
• Flax: Flax roving from Etsy, in color Rust, approx 33%

Would never have guessed it, but here I am suddenly a cotton and silk spinning fanatic, and now that I’ve discovered great sources for both dyed cotton roving and Eri (peace) silk. I learned from a Long Thread Media instructional video Spinning Exotic Blends that spinning silk sometimes is easier to spin and gives uniformity to the single, when the silk fibers are cut to the length of the other fibers in the blend, so I tried again snipping off the silk into pieces the same length as the cotton, then blended the two together on the carders. This plied yarn was extremely soft but has no spring, completely slack, bringing out the best of both fibers.

♣ Blending Notes ♣ 

• Silk: Eri Silk roving from Living Dreams , color natural yellow, approx 50%
• Cotton: Dyed Combed Cotton Roving Top from Living Dreams Yarn, color Azure, approx 50%

In June I explored colorful wool tweeds and now sampling an array of non-wool spinning fibers … carding a few grams, spinning, plying, photographing, with more yet to come. I am already narrowing, already thinking about what is coming next; spinning whole skeins instead of a few grams, writing the recipes carefully so that I can replicate, then at last, knitting the yarn into something to showcase the best of the best.

Cotton is one of those things that I’ve put off learning to spin, for it is such a short staple, and in my experience extremely difficult to spin with a suspended spindle. I did try before and gave up, and so I’m trying it in a blend and am feeling encouraged that this time it will work. This sample is dyed cotton roving blended with mulberry silk, a little difficult to spin with a suspended spindle, but what a great pairing, and so soft.

♣ Blending Notes ♣ 

• Silk: Mulberry silk roving from Paradise Fibers, color Malabo Green, approx 50%
• Cotton: Dyed Cotton Roving from Living Dreams Yarn, color Curry, approx 50%

Deep amber silken bamboo and fuchsia flax, the colors and the textures are meant to be together. I had a feeling I was going to love this one, as I am smitten with the flax blended into silken fiber, it really is a great balance; the bamboo is very much like silk, and as the colors were leaping out at me to put together, topaz bamboo with fuchsia flax, well, I could not resist. I made a double sample of four punies (litte rolags) instead of only two, because I really wanted to look forward to my whorl’d news and feel exquisite spinning a beautiful color blend. Although the color combo is spot on for me, this pairing was not easy to spin on the Turkish spindle, as bamboo is extremely slick and doesn’t really have any grip like silk does, and neither does the short flax tow fiber, but it is a completely vegan fiber, I’ll give it that.

♣ Blending Notes ♣ 

• Bamboo: Bamboo top from Paradise Fibers, in color Topaz, approx 50%
• Flax: Dyed flax roving from Paradise Fibers, in color BonBon, approx 50%