finished my fairy tail spinning….almost
A short spinning post today. We have a social on Mondays at our guild. When I am there, I help Jan with the Library. We are going through our archive book boxes and deciding what to keep and what to sell. A big Job. Once that is done, I spin on my spindle. I am not a production spinner. I like to slowly spin small quantities of fibre; I just enjoy spinning and chatting.
I got a sample bag of fibre from World of Wool. It was called Fairytail, 67% merino; 33% stellina. It is a lovely fibre with sparkle. I know it is almost as bad as glitter for getting everywhere, but I can’t resist sparkle. Sadly, they have discontinued this group or fibre. The Stlina is much more expensive than angelina or trilobal nylon, so I imagine it was not as popular. However, it is soft and spins wonderfully.
There were 8 colours. The yellow disappeared, but I did get a picture of it spun.
The teal red is still a single and I will probably ply it on Monday. The last one is the problem child. I did try to spin this, but it just ends up dull and muddy. There are just too many opposing colours in it. The stripes are too small to let you separate them out, so it will have to be used for something else.
I have managed to do some more work on my workshop. I have discovered a mistake in my instructions. It makes me grateful for my computer and word processing. I can easily go through the document and change it. I am old enough to remember retyping things because of a small mistake. And not being able to use white-out because it would look bad.
17 thoughts on “finished my fairy tail spinning….almost”
A lovely collection of spun yarns Ann. What will you do with them?
Your problem child – rather than ply it to itself would it be less like mud if it was plied to another single colour? I’m just stabbing in the dark as I’m no spinner!
Ooooh….manual typing, inserting the ribbon, cleaning the letter heads, re-typing, scrolling back inserting small Tipex sheets & re-typing the same letter to ‘white it out’ then scrolling back yet again and re-typing the correct letter! Didn’t we have fun! Now it is all so extremely easy by comparison (assuming one can master the technology) 🤪
Thanks. I will put them in the bags with all the others. I do use them in some of my felting but not as much as I make. Mostly I just enjoy spinning.
Word can be frustrating but is still better than retyping.
Who doesn’t love a bit of sparkle! It’s a shame to discover a fibre mix that you like then to find it discontinued. How do you usually use your spun fibres?
It’s difficult to write instructions especially when the process you are trying to describe is almost instinctive to you. What you need is a never-ending supply of newbies to test instructions 🙂
Word processing is the best – my early working life involved heavy manual typewriters too.
I do love some sparkle, I bought it as a set of multi bags and sold the others or I wouldn’t have got one. It was quite a lot more than the other ones. I do add some to my felting but mostly they just go in a bag with other balls of may hand spun. I just like spinning.
for the instructions, I have to add so much more detail than when I do an in person class. I have to think of all the talking I do and put it in to something comprehensible.
The colour names were amusing…. “I kissed a frog” and “it calls me”!! I’m no spinner either but my first thought re the problem combo was along the lines of Antje, to pick one of the colours already in there (or at least something close to) and add half as much again of that colour to lift it.
I remember the days of typewriters too😳 …….oh you’ve got me reminiscing now! Good luck with those instructions.
If I strip it int multicoloured pencil roving and add it to one of the other colours It may work but It will probably end up felted into something.
I love these fibres and yarns Ann. I wouldn’t bother to spin the problem child, I’d use it to felt multi coloured scarves; either just the fibres you have or mixed (gently) with white or black merino.
Oh yes typewriters. I used to have to type Wills. You were not allowed to make any corrections at all – any mistake and you had to start again. Of course the mistakes were always made near the end.
Here’s a connection with the past – when I first joined the firm of solicitors in Maidstone (UK) as a shorthand typist, the firm was still employing the man who used to hand write the deeds! By then he was just preparing the maps that were included in Conveyances, and filing, and we were typing the deeds.
Ann
That was a connection to the past for me, Ann. I was born in Cranbrook, Kent, then moved to Marden and finally to Leeds (with the castle). Left in the early 80s when I came to the States.
I don’t knit so not much point in making lots of anything. It would probably look nice on black background. maybe the edge of a ruffle scarf.
Drawing maps for deeds could be a cool job. My son can do that, exact copies, like a photo of it.
Beautiful, such joyful colours.
I am reminded of a bag of delicious treats to keep the boredom at bay during a long drive.
Thanks, they look like a bag of jewels to me.
One things for sure Ann, it won’t be wasted!
Even if they are just in a bowl looking pretty they are not a waist.
If I spun, it would be like you, just short amounts that can be used in felting. Or they are great for couching down to make patterns or lines on a piece. I hope your class is coming along, it will be a great addition to our online classes.
They are not fine yarns so couching them would work well. I just got to the end of the rolling. So next is fulling. Then the how to design and try out a pattern part. That shouldn’t take as long. The next thing I am making for myself will be a pillow for my chair.
the sparkle seems more suble (if sparkle can be subtle?) spinning for the fun of spinning is a good resson to spin. it was fun to see so many people spinning on dropspindles on monday. (i have photos for tomorows post!)
lovely yarn as alwasy! maybe chain ply the last one to have blocks of colour insted of mud? it may take some modified vertion of park and draft to do that.
There is lots of sparkle, it shows best in the top picture. I have no idea what I did to capture the sparkle in that one and not in the others. I haven’t figured out chain plying yet. maybe someone will show me at the next social. I don’t think it would help the fibre though.