After knitting 2 1/2 pounds of a neutral during Tour de Fleece, I knew I would want to spin some color in the fall. When my LYS announced they were sponsoring a team for Spinzilla, I decided to join in, even though I hadn’t participated in the event previously. Spinzilla is another made-up, just-for-fun event that benefits the NeedleArts Mentoring Program. Lord knows I’m not the fastest spinner, so I’m unlikely to win a prize, and I don’t really care about that stuff anyway… but I figured, sure, why not?
The festivities started with a wheel tune-up day turned spin-in. Just for the fun of it, I spun up this pretty braid from Southern Cross Fibre
into this lovely, fractal, aran-weight 2-ply on my Schacht Ladybug.
I really enjoyed spinning the Falkland wool. I need to get some more of that!
When the week of the event came, I decided I wanted to get familiar with spinning merino, a fiber I haven’t spun much of, but have quite a bit in stash. However, I started with a braid of Three Waters Farm Polwarth/Silk though, just to start on the right foot. I love me some Polwarth/Silk.
I spun this one fractally, too, but using a different technique (details on my project page). I am very happy with the way it turned out and think it might grow up to be a hat.
Next up, I got going with the merino. A friend recently told me that spinning merino is like spinning cream cheese… and she wasn’t wrong! After spinning lots of more ‘toothy’ wools, the merino feels so soft & squishy! But I decided I wanted to try to spin it worsted, with a fair bit of twist & see how it reacted (and how I reacted to it). This bag of fiber was Unplanned Peacock’s blend of superwash merino, silk, nylon & sparkle and I love the colors (even though I can’t wear them!).
The third fiber I attempted during this week was 100% merino – training wheels were off now! I took the same approach on this fiber as the blend above – true worsted draw, from combed top, spun with a fair bit of twist and then chain-plyed. The fiber looked to have more blues & greens in it than the finished yarn. Sadly, I can’t wear this color, either – BUT it brings out the hubs’ eyes, so he’ll likely get a hat out of this yarn.
My secondary goal for Spinzilla was to attempt to spin some long draw. I have failed at this before, but decided I needed to get back on the horse. For this, I grabbed some Romney from Unplanned Peacock and figured if I sucked it up, it was only 4 oz and I probably could ask her to dye me some more… BUT IT WORKED! It was SO FAST, too! I spun the entire 4 oz. of singles in one afternoon. I can’t wait to spin a sweater’s quantity of yarn this way! It’ll go like WHOOSH!
My total yardage was 728 yards for the week – not too shabby. My back wasn’t having much treadling during the week, so the merinos and romney were all spun on my Hansen – so glad I got that!!
Donita Westman 