ECF & FO Friday: Lace Weight Edition
Firstly, let me apologize for my lateness in posting today and announcing the contest winner. Unless you watch weather headlines on The Weather Channel you probably missed it, but there was some serious flash flooding in Fort Collins last night. Our house is not situated well for such things and we actually evacuated for a few hours. It was for naught, thank goodness, but water was creeping up our driveway and the drainage ditch that drains the entire neighborhood was filling quickly. Seeing as how I had a rather traumatic experience with flooding ten years ago, last night was even more stressful. We’re fine and our property is fine. We got 2.5 inches in about 1 hour, another inch in another 45 minutes to an hour and all told, 4.5 inches. We’re at risk for the next several days as all this excess moisture will just feed back into more thunderstorm development in the afternoon/evenings. Can we say a rather eventful week?!?!?
Now onto the good stuff! The first 3.1 oz of lace weight 2-ply handspun is finally finished. It has been washed/set and dried and skeined. I like the final product a lot. The soy silk gave it a nice hand that I do feel will be fantastic for a shawl. This first skein is a little neppy and inconsistent, but I think that will work well for the design idea that is starting to formulate itself in my mind. The next one should be improved as I think my batts have improved (more on the next week).
Fiber: Brown Sheep seconds, solar dyed by me, blended with natural soy silk on Cathy’s drum carder
Weight: 3.1 oz
Drafting Method: Supported Long Draw (Woolen)
Wheel: Majacraft Suzie Pro
Ratio Singles/Plying: 12:1 (both)
Yardage: 648 yds (niddy noddy measure), 537.33 yds (McMorran balance) => ~593 yds (averaged)
Ply: 2-ply (Abby’s method)
WPI/Yarn Classification: ~25 WPI/Fingering)
TPI: ~8 TPI
So, it was very interesting the discrepancy between the niddy noddy measure and the McMorran balance measure - more than 100 yds difference! I realize neither method provides an exact measure. The McMorran in my mind is the least accurate because it relies upon one’s yarn being very consistent. To top it off, you take the sample from one of the ends so you don’t end up making 1 skein into 2. I don’t know about you, but my ends are often not what the middle is. Especially if one takes from the last bit plied which is then from the first bit spun in the singles. It usually takes me several yards to settle in on the proper grist.
I’m flattered that so many of you were expecting upwards of 600 and 700 yards from 3 ounces of fiber! I know Cathy calls my singles frog hair, but wow! I decided to use the average between the two measures which was 593 yds. The closest without going over was Suzanne! Suzanne, since you already have Two Thumbs up, pick two of my patterns you would like and send me an e-mail (fiberfool AT gmail). All the crazy drama of this week has gone to my head so I used the random number generator to pick one more winner. Shannon, you are the second winner. The same goes for you, choose two of my patterns and send me an e-mail.
Have a good weekend everyone!
