Saturday, September 8, 2007

My First Spun in the Grease!

My first yarn spun in the grease and washed after plied. It is actually easier to spin oober fine lace weight yarn this way as the grease creates some grip and the yarn is not ripped from my grip. I have avoided spinning in the grease for the longest time. I got impatient at waiting for my newly acquired fleece stash from the annual Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival to dry after washing it, so I decided to give it a try. What did I have to lose? Nothin apparently! HA! This will be knit into my gauge swatch for the Secret of the Stole KAL. The wool is a Targee X Salish and I blended in some tencile. The tencile looks a lot like silk does, but it is 10x easier to work with. Sweet!!

2 comments:

Tina in Wonderland said...

Cool! What fine yarn you made, with such tiny strands! And with your new spinning technique, I think you just earned the first 'S' for your September project!! (I'm having a mega busy week, which is saying something as this is just Tuesday morning, but I'll get your 'S' up sometime later today.)

I will confess, I don't know a blooming thing about spinning, except that it does look like fun. What kind of grease did you use?

C4G said...

Oh! The grease is the lanolin that is already apart of a raw fleece when purchased (lanolin being the grease that the sheep naturally produce that helps protect them from the weather). When you spin it before cleaning it, it's called spinning in the grease. I usually wash it off before attempting to spin, but a lot of my spinning acquaintances say spinning in the grease is great and great for your hands as the lanolin softens them! I am glad I tried as I love spinning in the grease now! WOO-HOO!