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Showing posts with label carders. Show all posts
Showing posts with label carders. Show all posts

Monday, April 21, 2008

Spinning Chiengora


I suppose there's a fancy name for everything..grin I had our son keep the "fur" after our grand poodle Brigit was groomed and bring it to me. I've had a smaller amount in my room for quite a while, but didn't have a spindle that was light weight enough for the tiny strands of poodle fur.

I finally got around to making one and so.. here we go. I started with a bit of wool to give the poodle fur something to grasp and I have to admit, it was rough going to learn. I finally figured out that if I would use some spinning oil on it as I was carding it everything would spin much easier and there would be a lot less fly away going on. I pulled on the thread quite hard at intervals while spinning it and so far it seems to be quite strong. Perhaps will get it finished tomorrow and then I think I will ply it with wool...that will make it go much further and I already have some Corriedale wool going on my Bossie spindle. I can hardly wait to see how much it finally ends up being...

Sunday, March 02, 2008

Alpaca Fleece?



I talked to my "spinning guru" Linda yesterday. We had to make a quick run to McKinney to get a set of carders so I could work on my Icelandic wool. Well, it turns out that the one that is actually fleece is not Icelandic wool at all... it's Alpaca! It seems that I got the other 2 brown colors of Icelandic and 1 large bag of white Corriedale wool from one side of the room. But this brown color that just fit with the other two I got from the other side of the room...lol That was not Icelandic... My new carders can be seen on left side of this pic...


But I am happy about it anyway. I noticed that the fleece had not been washed and yet did not feel greasy or like it was full of lanolin... that didn't really seem right. Duhh... pretty good sign it is not wool! This will be a new experience altogether. The thing about alpaca is that it is supposed to very light and fluffy to wear, but does not have the memory (spring back) that wool does. This would be a good time to mix the wool with the alpaca and try my hand at that...hmmmm