{"id":1640,"date":"2018-07-13T08:48:52","date_gmt":"2018-07-13T06:48:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/waltin.se\/josefinwaltinspinner\/?p=1640"},"modified":"2019-01-30T18:53:16","modified_gmt":"2019-01-30T17:53:16","slug":"tweed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/waltin.se\/josefinwaltinspinner\/tweed\/","title":{"rendered":"Tweed!"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I have mentioned before<\/a>, I am taking part in PLY magazine’s spinalong 51 yarns<\/a>. It is a theme-based spinalong based on the book 51 yarns by Jacey Boggs Faulkner<\/a>. Each week they choose one participant who wins a year’s subscription to the magazine. I actually won on week 10: Semi worsted. This week’s theme is tweed.<\/p>\n

Tweed: First try<\/h1>\n

I started a couple of weeks ago and planned to use short clips of handspun yarn that I had unplied and fluffed up. It didn’t work out very well. The fibers didn’t join in in the yarn. Instead they fell out and looked like lint that had got stuck to the yarn.<\/p>\n

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Tweed, first try: Failed.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A second try<\/h1>\n

Of course I wasn’t happy with the yarn. I could have settled for a failed yarn, but I didn’t. I really liked the specks of colour in the dark grey yarn and I knew I could do better. So I browsed for Sari silk and found a beautiful colour blend with turquoise as a main colour<\/a>. I am very much in a turquoise period right now.<\/p>\n

I picked it up from the post office just a few days later and it was as yummy in reality as it was on the picture online, perhaps even more so.<\/p>\n

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Sweet sari silk<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Since I have no prior experience with tweed, I wanted to spin a couple of samples with different preparation to find the best way to spin the yarn. So I tried both with hand-combed top and hand-carded rolags.<\/p>\n

The yarn I used was a beautiful dark grey mixbreed of Swedish finewool and Rya. The fleece got a gold medal at the 2017 Swedish fleece championships<\/a> and I snatched it at the auction.<\/p>\n

Hand-combed top<\/h2>\n
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Hand-combed top with sari silk<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Before I started combing, I realized that there would be a problem with drawing the top off the comb. When you draw, you usually get the longest fibers first. This would mean that I would get all the sari silk bunched up in the end of the top. And this is exactly what happened. The sari silk was also more streaks of colour than tweedy specks. In addition to that, a lot of sari silk had got stuck in the tines of the combs.<\/p>\n

I spun the yarn on a supported spindle and plied it on the fly<\/a>. Just as I had suspected, the sari silk was unevenly spread across the yarn.<\/p>\n

Tweed yarn spun from hand-combed top and plied on the fly on a supported spindle. Almost all of the sari silk is hidden closest to the shaft.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hand-carded rolag<\/h2>\n

Carding was a lot nicer than combing. I teased the locks by combinb, together with the sari silk. I pulled the wool off the combs tuft by tuft and loaded them on the cards and carded away. The sari silk was evenly spread across the rolag and it looked beautiful.<\/p>\n

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A beautiful tweed rolag<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I spun it the same way as I had spun the combed tops. I had to pay extra attention to the drafting. Usually, I stay away from nepps when I prepare for carding and I remove any nepps when I see them along the spinning. But this time I wanted to keep them in and I had to watch the yarn carefully so that the yarn didn’t break or get lumpy. But it did turn out beautifully.<\/p>\n

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Tweed yarn spun from hand-carded rolags and plied on the fly on a supported spindle. The sari silk is evenly spread throughout the tweed yarn. Spindle from Malcolm Fielding.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Thoughts<\/h1>\n

There are clear differences between the finished yarns. Structurewise of course, the yarn spun from carded rolags is fluffier and softer and the yarn spun from combed top is stronger and shinier. But also you can see the difference in the tweed structure. The yarn spun with carded rolags has the sari silk more evenly distributed. The yarn spun from combed top has the sari silk unevenly distributed.<\/p>\n

\"Two
The finished balls of yarn. On the left is yarn from carded rolags and on the right is yarn from combed top.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It is even more obvious in a knitted swatch. I knit it with the same needle gauge and with the same amount of stitches and rows. You can see the sari silk evenly distributed on the left swatch knitted with yarn spun with carded rolags. The fabric is a bit denser than the one to the right. It also feels softer. To the right is the swatch knit from the yarn spun with combed top. You can see that the sari silk is more dense at the bottom and less so at the top. The sari silk is also less obvious in this swatch since it is combed into the top and spun more as streaks of colour than specks. The sari silk to the left ‘pops’ more.<\/p>\n

\"Two
Swatching: Yarn from carded rolags on the left and combed top on the right.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Even if I suspected that the results would be different, I needed to feel it and see it. Only when I experience the difference in real time can I really appreciate it and learn something from it: I learn how fiber behaves and how these fibers in particular behave. My hands need to know the fiber to be able to spin the wool into its best yarn. After this experiment, I think I have a clue to how to accomplish that.<\/p>\n

What’s next?<\/h1>\n

My plan now is to spin the whole fleece into yummy skeins of 3-ply tweed yarn. I will spin it with longdraw from carded rolags on my spinning wheel. I will probably make it a bit thicker, perhaps sport weight yarn. Also, I may use slightly less sari silk per rolag, I prefer it to be more subtle than in the swatch.<\/p>\n

I also have secret plans to design a garment to fit the structure and feeling of the yarn.<\/p>\n

I went from not having given tweed a second thought to planning to spin a whole fleece into tweed yarn and designing a garment to match it. That wouldn’t have happened without the spinalong. Thank you PLY magazine and 51 yarns!<\/p>\n

Happy spinning!<\/p>\n

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