Saturday, December 17, 2005

Wensleydale boucle & beaded yarn



Here are two of my experiments:

  1. A beaded yarn that I made from a commercial 2 ply & sewing thread (with beads strung on it). I tried it both counter clockwise & clockwise & didn’t like the twist either ways. Fortunately, because the sewing thread is a good color match, it doesn’t show how poorly it plied. I assume it won’t be very easy to knit with because you’d have to be careful of ‘spitting’. However the blue beads on this cranberry yarn look lovely. They are iridescent & look beautiful in the evening which leads me on to believe that I DO want to make a scarf out of this yarn.

Some time ago I’d plied a handspun single with small wooden beads & THAT turned out beautiful! I guess since it was a slightly overspun single, it plied beautifully with the sewing thread. That skein’s buried somewhere in my stash…

  1. The boucle is made from Wensleydale. It has close to the stiffness mohair does (for the purpose of boucle) & turns out pretty soft! I was SO pleased. Let’s see…you spin one bobbin overspun clockwise & the other bobbin underspun counterclockwise. Then you use the underspun as the core & spin clockwise, pushing the overspun single with your hand occasionally to get the boucle. You need more yards of the overspun since it loops on itself to be able to use up all the underspun. WHEW!

Sunday, December 11, 2005


The rusts, pinks & reds is a blend of mohair/wool/soy 60/20/20 silk that I bought. I spun & 2-plied it & later entered it in the FFF at Montpelier & won a 2nd on it.The white is a lace weight yarn I just finished spinning from a blend of wool/angora bunny/silk 60/20/20. It feels heavenly. There must be at least 800 yards in there. My right wrist hurts from the spinning.