Ok I have to admit to the "almost" before I start. I didn't shear the sheep, prep the fleece or dye the yarn... but apart from those small bits I'm doing these socks from scratch... well from the spinning phase onwards anyway. So what am I starting with? Back at FibreEast I managed to get two 100g braids of BFL/Seacell for £5 each. With the dark blues and blacks in the fibre, shot through with the very pale blue of the seacell, I thought they'd make a pair of socks that I can get away with wearing for work.
My first step then was to split the fibre into three, one for each ply. Luckily with the braid being, well a braid, that was nice and easy. I've also decided to do the spinning on my shiney new Turkish spindle from IST. I'm away from home quite a lot at the moment so I want to be able to do my plying preparation as easily as possible. The center pull balls that you get from a turkish I'm hoping will make it easy to wind a plying ball once I've got the singles finished, with no need for bobbins or a lazy kate. As you can see I've got the first third spun up and have the second two ready to go.
And for a slightly gratuitous shot of the finished first cop:
For those of you not familiar with the turkish style of spindle it has a really nifty trick in that it comes apart, allowing you to remove the cop without re-winding. The shaft first slips out downwards, then the two arms slide out from each other and the cop, like so:
Leaving me with:
Two more sets of singles and I'll be ready to ply. After that I need so check the yardage I've managed and decide on a pattern. I currently suspect that I'm going to get a mildly heathered variegated dark blue yarn, which I'm tempted to try my first patterned sock with.
One quick note on the fibre itself as this is the first time I've used either BFL or seacell. The BLF is beautiful to work with, drafts very smoothly and is crimpy enough to not slip. The seacell on the other hand is being a bit of a pain. It tends to stick to itself causing barber-polling and if I'm not careful detaches itself completely from the BFL. I'm not sure that I'd go for this mix another time unless it was more blended. It seems to be working out ok at the moment though.
My first step then was to split the fibre into three, one for each ply. Luckily with the braid being, well a braid, that was nice and easy. I've also decided to do the spinning on my shiney new Turkish spindle from IST. I'm away from home quite a lot at the moment so I want to be able to do my plying preparation as easily as possible. The center pull balls that you get from a turkish I'm hoping will make it easy to wind a plying ball once I've got the singles finished, with no need for bobbins or a lazy kate. As you can see I've got the first third spun up and have the second two ready to go.
And for a slightly gratuitous shot of the finished first cop:
For those of you not familiar with the turkish style of spindle it has a really nifty trick in that it comes apart, allowing you to remove the cop without re-winding. The shaft first slips out downwards, then the two arms slide out from each other and the cop, like so:
Leaving me with:
Two more sets of singles and I'll be ready to ply. After that I need so check the yardage I've managed and decide on a pattern. I currently suspect that I'm going to get a mildly heathered variegated dark blue yarn, which I'm tempted to try my first patterned sock with.
One quick note on the fibre itself as this is the first time I've used either BFL or seacell. The BLF is beautiful to work with, drafts very smoothly and is crimpy enough to not slip. The seacell on the other hand is being a bit of a pain. It tends to stick to itself causing barber-polling and if I'm not careful detaches itself completely from the BFL. I'm not sure that I'd go for this mix another time unless it was more blended. It seems to be working out ok at the moment though.
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