Oh, Sunflowers. You remain one of my all time favourite flowers. I love the subtlety of your colours and how yellow fades to orange and then to pink. This is what I hoped to capture this month for club. The simple play between colours. This photo was one I took many, many years ago when I was learning photography at school. I loved it so much that I scanned my negative and turned it into cards. It is still a favourite and I’m delighted to share it with you today.
This month for club, I had brought in some UK Organic. There’s not a lot of information to be found online, but my best guess is that it’s a blend of a variety of different breeds. When a sheep comes with the “organic” tag, it means that the sheep are non-mulesed. For luxury club, I blended Llama and Silk with the UK Organic. As I still find myself short on time, the following reflections are from Rachel for her spin this month.
This month was well within my comfort zone, which I’ve been exploring these past few months through this club. The nests of fibre are some of my favourite fibre preparations – I just love unwrapping the nests and pulling them into long strips. From there, I usually pre-draft them slightly along the length of the fibre and spin from the end I started pre-drafting at to spin with the bias of the fibre.
Often, I see these nests of fibre spun end-to-end with no pre-drafting or striping down. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this approach! In my experience though, the initial prep that came off the drumcarder was full of air and loft. After being wrapped into a nest for packaging and shipping (or stashing), which means it won’t be spun immediately, they become slightly compacted and dense. By pre-drafting and striping down the fibre, the air and loft is returned to the fibre and I often prefer my yarns I spin when I take the time to do this extra step!
Because I had 4 nests of fibre to spin, I decided to spin two to one bobbin and likewise to another bobbin. This gave me two singles to then ply together. I kept the singles on the slightly lower twist side but reversed my approach for plying.
Rather than leaving my twist low for plying, I decided to increase the amount of twist and really tighten up my twist angle – to about 45° for the finished yarn. This means that I can include it in a weaving project I have been thinking about for a while. Because multiple yarns are going to be included, I wanted to ensure this yarn would be added without difficulty. I have spun yarns that are slightly higher twist and roughly sport to worsted weight yarns. The variety will mean a 2/2 textured twill. That’s the plan anyhow! This weaving will definitely push me outside my comfort zone! I’ll keep you posted!
I keep hoping that I will find the space to get back to spinning club myself, but I do love to see what you do with club! Please feel free to share it over on this thread in the Wool N Spinning Ravelry Group or tag me on Instagram with the hashtags #craftyjaksboutique or #craftyjaksclub
In case you missed the announcement, it was with great sadness that I decided to discontinue club at the beginning of April. June will be our last shipment and if you’d like to join in, you need to sign up before May 20th. You can find the listing for club here. I am sad to end club, but I’m looking forward to sharing what I have in store for you.
Till next time,
Happy Spinning!
Katrina
