Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Spinning Diverse Fibres

I suppose it's official now. I'm a spinning fanatic.
In case my (non-fibre-y) friends and family didn't already think me strange enough, I started spinning my dog's fur.
Having completed 2/3 of my camel silk (above- isn't that lovely stuff?), I decided my support spindle needed a break from all that fine lace and the bag of dog hair stashed under the sink needed a reason-to-be.
With the help of a leader yarn (my first time using/needing one; I usually hand twist the start of a yarn) I started spinning Darla's fur.  This is all undercoat tufts that I pluck from her, so there is very minimal tough guard hairs in the blend.

 

I have no brushes/carders to process the fibre, so I'm spinning from the cloud/fluff. The staple length is quite short (especially compared with the BFL I started spinning yesterday), but the high speed of the spindle and the lack of any weight pulling down is working to whip this up.  Because of the leader yarn I started with, the single is being S-spun.  I'm keeping the yarn relatively fine at about a sport weight single - which is 'thick' for me.  I'll be 2-plying this dog yarn and then knitting up a wee doggy.  It's essentially 'art yarn' to me. Too itchy/fluffy/sheddy and too warm to be of any practical use.  One day I might consider blending it with wool, but this first play with dog yarn - chiengora - is just for fun.



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