After a couple of attempts to ply the merino using a wheel, I think I’ve got it. The singles were spun with 15 twists per inch and plied with 10 twists per inch. This time I took more care when plying although the skein does have a slight “S” twist. According to The Spinner’s Companion, I’ll need to add more twist during plying. At least it doesn’t look as bad as my first attempt (the red skein). Maybe Patternworks could sell my first attempt as scarf & novelty yarn. It would fit right in with Cool Stuff for $50.00/skein.

While browsing books at the library yesterday, I came across Knitting In America by Melanie Falick. Wow, what a beautiful and inspiring book. It profiles 38 knitting designers, authors and fiber related places in America. I’m enjoying reading about Priscilla Gibson-Roberts, Nancy Bush, Lizbeth Upitis, Sarah Swett and others.

I was especially interested in the profile on Sarah Swett who designed the Spin-Off sweater that I’m making. Check out her web site. Her all tapestries are truly amazing, but I especially like Hands. Her Kestrals Alight Cropped Kimono is now on my list of future projects. The pattern is in Knitting In America.

Another pattern added to my sock list is the Pretty Comfy Socks pattern that Emma is currently knitting. Emma thanks for sharing this pattern by Debbie Young. Your socks are coming out beautifully and look quite comfy. I just happen to have several balls of Fixation that needed a pattern.

When I knit in public, I never know what will come from it.

Last summer while on a short hiking trip in the Methow with folks from PBI, I whipped out a mitten project during our lunch break. As I worked a few rows, my fellow hikers mentioned that knitting and spinning was a popular activity when they moved there among a wave of hippies. One hiker mentioned that she happened to have a fleece given to her by a friend who had raised sheep and spun wool. It had been used as part of a Halloween costume but was no longer needed. Since I was so enthusiastic about knitting, she graciously offered me the fleece. I gladly accepted not fully understanding the ramifications.

After the fleece sat in the box for a couple of weeks while I research what to do with it, I finally got enough courage to dive in and clean it. I’ve read that a fleece can be soaked in a top loading washing machine as long as there is no agitation. After the fleece is clean through soaking, the water can be spun out of the wool by putting the washer in spin mode. Although this sounded like a fast way to get the job done, this method wasn’t an option for me since I converted to a front loader a couple of years ago.

Here are the steps that I took to manually clean the fleece. It’s a long process but keeps the lock intact which is important when spinning worsted yarn.

1. Separate a bunch of the wool locks from the fleece and put them in a mesh laundry bag, keeping the cut ends together so as not to mix up the ends of the wool.

2. Fill the buckets with very hot tap water and then add lots of Dawn dishwashing soap.

3. Place the mesh bag of wool into one bucket and let it soak for 10 minutes. Be sure not to agitate the wool or it might felt.

4. Repeat soaking with another bucket of new water until the water starts to look clean. Each bucket of water must be at the same temperature as the last, otherwise the wool might start to felt.

5. When the wool is fairly clean, rinse it in fresh hot water.

6. Gently take the wool out of mesh bags and put on a drying rack. It takes about one to two days to dry.

The mesh laundry bags help keep the locks together and allow the wool to be delicately removed from the water. Keep in mind that wool will felt if there is too much agitation or a drastic change in the water temperature.

Don’t be surprised if the wool changes color when cleaned. This one turned from brown to gray with white highlights.

Friday, I plyed some singles on my wheel for the first time and ended up with a twisted mess that couldn’t be straightened through washing. It was all very sad. Plying on a spindle never produced such horrible results, so I was a little depressed about the whole ordeal.

While at the sale on Saturday, I finally caved in and bought Spinning Wool Beyond the Basics by Anne Field. Although I’ve only flipped through the book, I’ve learned how to regulate twists per inch (tpi) by counting treadle cycles. Only an inch of fiber is feed into the orifice for every revolution of the wheel. Monitoring twist in this way should result in a single with consistent twist through out the thread.

The book mentions keeping track of the wheel revolution by counting on the down pedal but I’ve come up with my own technique. I put a bright sticky note on the top edge of the wheel and watch for it as I spin. Every time I see the sticky note at the top, I feed in an inch of fiber.

The singles are look pretty good but the real test will happen when I attempt to ply. Before my next attempt, I’ll follow the handy 2-ply twist comparison chart in Beyond the Basics to determine the correct plied twist per inch. This chart lists desired tpi for singles along with corresponding tpi for plied yarn. Singles are generally plied with 2/3 of the amount of twist used to spin the singles.

This weekend I also received my Paradise Fiber order which contained a copy of Handspinning Advanced Techniques. It promises to teach me how to “make a plied yarn of any exact thickness with just the amount of twist …” Sounds promising. I started watching it but dozed off after the hand carding segment.