Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Spin Journal #2: The Gray Monmouth Cap

I finally succumbed to the temptation of using the new drum carder, and recarded the rolags and some additional picked wool both to try out the carder, and to continue spinning up the Corri-Cot into yarn. I ended up with about 6 ounced of beautiful batts (still full of noils, thanks to the second-cuts), but this time spun what I had on the Schacht-Reeves. Talk about quick! I had nearly everything spun in an evening (thank heavens I can still treadle, even with a bad back).

After spinning, Stephen said, "Can you really felt my hat a lot?" Well, I can do nearly anything (at least where fiber is concerned), so I reeled off all my singles and tied the hanks to set twist. Normally, I don't set the twist until after plying, but this time I'm using singles. Also, I sort of wish I had known before I started spinning. Normally I ply my yarns, so I overtwist the single slightly to accommodate the slight "untwisting" that happens during plying. Since these yarns weren't plied, they're overtwisted a bit.

Using the singles will also answer a couple questions that have come up recently on the Historic Knitting list about knitting, yarns, twist, bias. I want to see if the following happens:

1) Does the single attempt to untwist as I knit because I knit "US/English" style (I throw the yarn)?
2) Does the twist cause knitting to bias or skew to one direction or another?
3) Does the finished knitting felt tighter (more like felt) because the yarns aren't plied?