Today’s #teamwow challenge is to spin a dark natural fibre, so I’ve dug out a black alpaca roving I purchased at my first-ever Woolfest in… 2014? I don’t know why, as I had little intention of spinning then but it was the first time I’d even touched alpaca so maybe that was it. My intention after another day of grey Herdygurdy yesterday was to spin something colourful a wild orange-gold-black-grey-neppy* batt I picked up at the inaugural (and so far only) Yarnfolk festival in Whitehead, Co Antrim, just up the road from my first alma mater, the University of Ulster at Jordanstown (the old Ulster Polytechnic). I was slightly nervous about spinning alpaca, as I’ve heard it’s slippery and hard to handle, but so far so good.
In today’s post, I received a new spindle from Innoxia Crafts in Canada! If u don’t know about these spindles, they are 3D-printed using a plant-based plastic and feature removable bobbins on the shaft. I ordered the June 2023 Limited Edition Raspberry Cream spindle, with 4 matching bobbins:
The bobbins click into the whorl and are held in place with tiny rubber bands. They also fit nicely onto my lazy kate for easier plying! They also only have one flange (which is what Wikiwand informs me is the name for the disks at the ends of the bobbin shaft that stops the thread falling off). This is presumably to cut down on weight as the spindle is 39g, which is toward the upper end of my experience with spindles. The flange is not grooved as a whorl, so they won’t be of any use on my spinning wheels, but no matter – I can ply from them on the lazy kate onto a wheel bobbin. Isn’t she pretty?!
This is today’s effort – 55g of Herdwick/bio-nylon 2-ply, and 39g of black alpaca singles:
Allons-y!
*: This, of course, demonstrates my hypocrisy towards clown barf yarns…
thornmaiden.com 