Whew! One mammoth swatching, stitching and writing session finished. As promised the write-up from the silk spinning class at FibreFest 2011:
Jane started the class with a talk about commercial silk production, the reason being the majority of preps that we as hand spinners use are rejects or offcuts from this process. It was good to finally get my head round what each of the different terms meant as I now have a relatively good idea of what I'm buying and what I can expect to produce from it... note to self never ever ever buy 10kg of carrier rods, dyed or not! (Only funny if you were there sorry).
The best part of the class though was getting to try out the various different preps. I've ended up sewing them in slightly out of order from how I spun them but I'm not sure it makes any difference. First up in my notebook is the throwsters waste. This is basically the off-cuts from the reeling/weaving process. Apparently you can buy them still gummed for not very much and then degum them yourself, or save yourself the hassle and buy them ready dyed and degummed. Either way we cut it into shorter pieces as the staple length varies massively before carding it. It was my first attempt at carding anything so I left it fairly uneven rather than worry too much. Unsurprisingly it ended up fairly slubby when spun. For my own spinning/knitting I can see the potential, but unless it was much cheaper than silk tops I'm not sure I'd bother with the added time of carding it myself.
Next up was the tussah silk top. I've never see this in its natural colour and can really understand the comment of "spun gold" now. When spinning it it drafted like butter, but got absolutely everywhere! It is so fine and so light it sticks to everything. I think it took me the best part of a week and several washes before my dark jeans stopped sparkling! The top sample is a set of singles as this is how I've tended to buy pure silk in the past. The bottom is a laceweight 2ply which I really wish I'd photographed on the spindle as singles. It looked like I had a drop of gold somehow stuck there instead of a cop :)
The latter may also have resulted in a slightly expensive trip to the Oliver's Twist stall! Oh well :)
The next prep was spinning straight from the degummed cocoons. Here I have to own up to absolutely hating this fibre. Spinning it was fiddly but not too bad, and the cocoons themselves tend to be cheap as anything. The yarn though, urk! It is slubby which I'm not a fan of but worse than that, have you ever bitten a towel? You know that horrific squeeking feeling that goes right through you? Yup it does that between your fingers as you knit it. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it and it very nearly didn't make it into the book for that reason.
The second sample though redeems the page. It is spun from silk hankies. These have to be one of the easiest things in the world to spin, but one of the hardest to get even, for me anyway. Basically you carefully peel off one hankie from the stack, then stick a hole in the middle of it. From there you gently (or not so gently) pull your hands apart to start stretching it out. What you're aiming to do is to pre-draft the circle of silk to the width you eventually want the yarn to be. The staple on these is so long that you stand slightly less than no chance of drafting as you spin so all the drafting is done beforehand. Once you've got the circle at your desired thickness you break it, curl up the resulting pencil-roving-esq fluff and get on with the spinning. Overall I can see the appeal. Far less mess than the tops for an almost as smooth yarn. Now if I can just get my diameter issues sorted I might be convinced.
All in all it was £20 very well spent. Jane is a superb teacher and the other students absolutely made the class. Now I wonder what they'll be running class-wise next year...
Jane started the class with a talk about commercial silk production, the reason being the majority of preps that we as hand spinners use are rejects or offcuts from this process. It was good to finally get my head round what each of the different terms meant as I now have a relatively good idea of what I'm buying and what I can expect to produce from it... note to self never ever ever buy 10kg of carrier rods, dyed or not! (Only funny if you were there sorry).
The best part of the class though was getting to try out the various different preps. I've ended up sewing them in slightly out of order from how I spun them but I'm not sure it makes any difference. First up in my notebook is the throwsters waste. This is basically the off-cuts from the reeling/weaving process. Apparently you can buy them still gummed for not very much and then degum them yourself, or save yourself the hassle and buy them ready dyed and degummed. Either way we cut it into shorter pieces as the staple length varies massively before carding it. It was my first attempt at carding anything so I left it fairly uneven rather than worry too much. Unsurprisingly it ended up fairly slubby when spun. For my own spinning/knitting I can see the potential, but unless it was much cheaper than silk tops I'm not sure I'd bother with the added time of carding it myself.
Next up was the tussah silk top. I've never see this in its natural colour and can really understand the comment of "spun gold" now. When spinning it it drafted like butter, but got absolutely everywhere! It is so fine and so light it sticks to everything. I think it took me the best part of a week and several washes before my dark jeans stopped sparkling! The top sample is a set of singles as this is how I've tended to buy pure silk in the past. The bottom is a laceweight 2ply which I really wish I'd photographed on the spindle as singles. It looked like I had a drop of gold somehow stuck there instead of a cop :)
The latter may also have resulted in a slightly expensive trip to the Oliver's Twist stall! Oh well :)
The next prep was spinning straight from the degummed cocoons. Here I have to own up to absolutely hating this fibre. Spinning it was fiddly but not too bad, and the cocoons themselves tend to be cheap as anything. The yarn though, urk! It is slubby which I'm not a fan of but worse than that, have you ever bitten a towel? You know that horrific squeeking feeling that goes right through you? Yup it does that between your fingers as you knit it. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it and it very nearly didn't make it into the book for that reason.
The second sample though redeems the page. It is spun from silk hankies. These have to be one of the easiest things in the world to spin, but one of the hardest to get even, for me anyway. Basically you carefully peel off one hankie from the stack, then stick a hole in the middle of it. From there you gently (or not so gently) pull your hands apart to start stretching it out. What you're aiming to do is to pre-draft the circle of silk to the width you eventually want the yarn to be. The staple on these is so long that you stand slightly less than no chance of drafting as you spin so all the drafting is done beforehand. Once you've got the circle at your desired thickness you break it, curl up the resulting pencil-roving-esq fluff and get on with the spinning. Overall I can see the appeal. Far less mess than the tops for an almost as smooth yarn. Now if I can just get my diameter issues sorted I might be convinced.
All in all it was £20 very well spent. Jane is a superb teacher and the other students absolutely made the class. Now I wonder what they'll be running class-wise next year...
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