The weather cooled off a bit after the heat wave so now it is comfortable and breezy, which is perfect weather to get a little spinning in.
(This is actually a Leicester Longwool sheep, but they have similar fleeces to Wensleydale.)
The fiber was 1 oz of Tussah Silk and 2 oz of Wensleydale, dyed with madder and called "Cardinal". It was a club shipment from A Verb For Keeping Warm.
I spun it as a continuous single. It's so hard for me to resist the urge to ply. Plied yarn is so neat and tidy and balanced and everything else just looks odd to me.
It was interesting- both fibers like to be spun worsted and the staple length is incredibly long, but they are so different from each other. The silk is smooth and slick; the sheep is hairy and slippery. It's not unpleasant to spin, but it has almost no memory or crimp to it. Long draw worked well.
Finished, after a nice warm bath to set the twist and a healthy glug of vinegar to stop the dye from bleeding:
488 yards of lace singles. Which I'm trying my best to leave as singles. I love how the reds marled to a pretty valentine pink.
The Wendsleydale has a nice hairy halo. I'm not sure what I have in mind for a project with this yet.
As soon as this was off the bobbin, I started a polar opposite spinning project:
Cashmere and Silk blend! It's lovely. I have 8oz of it, so it should spin up to a decent amount- I'm aiming for sport-weight. I'm finding it really easy to put too much twist in this- it's so fine and slippery, and it likes to fall apart on you. Hence the over-twist. I'm really happy when I'm spinning this, and plying it will take out some of the kinked-up overtwist. The one bad thing about this fiber is that I have to commit to it when I spin it- the cashmere is so light and flyaway, I end up with a nice head-to-toe coating of fuzz the not even the bravest of lint rollers might be able to tackle.
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