Spinning yarn, setting yarn and some other

So... September, the time gos fast.
Here is some stuff
The fiber is merino and silk-polwarth (because LYS was out of superfine merino white at the moment)
that's about 1o of fibere in there. 3 smalls shawls, 2 different yarns.
I mixed the color on Russian triangular comb (no hackle present at the moment).

these are the fabrics that hopefuly will become historic doll dresses. Small shawls will be the accesories for them

white-peach is a single. put on the swift (heavy one, Shuttles at Boulder has these, do not do wet set if teh swift is flexible in any way, heavy amish kind is what one wants for this - that the only substitute for Russian табуретка I found abroad, well... more expensive... but it's hard to her табуретка at lows or some store like that... they just do not know what is it) ready to wet set. The rest of the fiber I took to Schacht Matchless wheel.

I promised some progress shots, and the last is my blurry action shot, because taking fast moving flier picture ... was not the right time of the day, very early morning is not it ...
Both yarns on the swift

close ups

Here is some other September spinning

 The cobweb yarn is done on Schacht Matchless, the fiber has some guard hair,

 but I'm not griping at 85 old Russian granny for not seeing some, because at her age, I'd be happy to do anything like that.
and if someone would ask, nope, thesee are different spindles, same fiber, the last mons spindles are on these 2 balls

The wet set. I trued to get the color in sun light outside with the fabric, the barker purple still came out darker than it is.

Now what the heck was my swift doing uside down in the bath tub?

metal ball bearing do not do well with water. no water was near them and I was careful to employ the gravity to help me out.
And after I took good amount of water from the yarn with the towel I made sure I have enough fabric bufer so no water is nowhere near any metal parts.

The whole thing went to sun. The fine gray yarn was wet set yesterday and si finishing in sun this morning.
So... fiber work is m=done, have to check how are my 3 wool fleeces doing (washed that they are drying... well... I did start at about 3am on 1-st...)


Табуретка looks like thsi. pulled from someone's blog

this is how it was painted, ours were just white.

Turn this upside down, use as a swift. Well, can employ laze kate from the kitchen, will have same kind of ball bearing action.

Hand spun yarn and yarn winder

In this post there is some hand spun yarn
Here is the same yarn plied. With high speed yarn winder it turns out that the ball core (necessary for goat down yarn not only to the ball from collapsing, but to set the yarn also) should be different in comparison to smaller yarn winder (where paper towl roll core works if some elastic is added to the ball winder bobbin so the core does not slip when the yarn is wound)

the ball will be lover on the core. the core is constructed of 2 pieces of paper towel core cut in the middle (length wise) and taped a little at the top so it does not fall off.
When the ball is done I pulled the cut pieces back together and have moved the ball gently and carefully about  1.5cm from the core bottom.

this much. the core is positioned like it was wound.
Now, stabilizing the leader:

and the core of the ball close up

when all set and done, I moved the sides of the core wider so the ball is tighter from the inside and taped them carefully so I do not disturb the ball itself.
Ito the wet baby blanket it goes to set (I do not use wet hot set in our dry climate, my grandma did not use the hot set for goat down yarn either, we just used longer set time).
Traditionally a different kind of round bobbin is used to wind the yarn (basically a piece of carton, a circle and one will wind the yarn on it by hand, white or like above non colored paper or carton, ink is not your friend in the wet yarn set situation).
I did similar set with the ball winder, seems to work fine. however I do like nostepine (well... I just use that paper towel roll as is) type of winding somewhat better. This particular yarn winder does make not so tight ball on the edges, less tight that I like personaly.

It is about 1/2 of the spun yarn plied.

Spin, play dolls, try some shawls

I did spin some Orenburg goat down  for several projects.
And I also got a white dress for 18'' America girl and alike  like doll. Made in China, but surprisingly ok sewing job, seams are finished with the serger. It is bit tight fit on AG so, and I wonder if it will fit looser on a different 18'' doll, AG are somewhat wider.

So some of this yarn will become doll shawl sampler, and some will be Fleur de Grace series r another one... I'm still deciding, did not ply the yarn yet as you can see from the photos below.
so let us begin:

what do we have here from left to right... silk to ply with, plastic N6 container (not goot for cooking but good for spinning rig part), 2 holiday boxes, bottom row as 21cm Orenburg spindles with down singles, 2 30cm spindles have down single and silk (upper left corner) reeled, last spindle on the right also has Orenburg goat down single, but it spun thicker than the other fiber in the photos and the intention of this is thicker doll item, as you can see there is not a lot spun for this separate project. Lighter gray down - more than one project and I have more of this color to spin, so there is no shortage of yarn in the house if I need more, I'll spin more, that was my weekend work and some during the week.
Plying... one can ply directly single and silk on the wheel , there are tips and tricks to it to avoing the doawn single "runns" over silk and bacicaly creating not desirable art yarn type an effect, not desirable in the shawl that is, i would make not exactly desirable yarn for the particular application, for some other project that type of yarn is quite usable, but that's not what I'm making.
Rigs: want to avoid "running" over silk, reel the 2 together and make it nice and tight.
One can do it like so

that's wher first holiday container becomes useful. Another way of controlling the spindle with the singles is this

taller plastic container (or glass or ceramic)

if one decides to use wheel and ply of the spindle this way, positioning the spindle like so may help

that's where the second holiday container becomes useful, one can attach a small elastic band to keep the top from rolling around too much.

Now.. the yarn when it will become some shawls will add to this set. I did play with white dress and different shawls and different looks a little bit. Learning my doll model. I do not know what is this exact doll, but will find out some time, so she does not have a name yet

Golden fleece part 3

the part of the fleece, small part of the fleece that was in the basket

the yarn on the left is 20/2 nm wool I used as ST break

it's a soft spun yarn, I did not spin it to the point of dog hair thick, the fiber spins to that point fine, the length as one can see from the prepared locks shot allows to go 3-4 fibers thick. This yarn is spun thicker intentionally, good old gossamer yarn. Then it blooms, it will look thicker, that's the hope at least.


the distraction did grow some thanks to discount stores and craigslist. Thomas trains are sooooooo outrageously expensive retail, they should not cost that bad as $10 for a small train and $40 for some painted square building. Supply demand and hit entertainment fees I guess have to do something with it. The production of these in China can not justify such very high price alone (they are not hand painted or anything of that sort). But they keep some remaining value so when the kiddo is done with them another kiddo will get to play at the discounted price. Pass on the savings.

it turns out that couple sets from Ross pay off to start because it;s hard to believe that this layout was in $30 range new plus 15 on craigslist and lucky thrift store trip for plastic takealong

flexible collapsible bridge was from discount store, not super lucky purchase, but a lot better than $80 retail.

after couple of days of banging the bridge... not the best place to put it in the first place... and couple disconnected flex track pieces on a flexible track (thank you craigs list purchase... $18 retail is kind of steep for 2 pieces of track made of wood and metal wire, but flexibility seems to cost I guess).

the way the logistics work, mama get up earlier, makes a layout

so then I have time to do this kind of cooking which requires some attention

or this kind of silk winding that is not quite child friendly due to how fine the yarn is,..

the silk is same silk plied with white wool. turned out I could not buy this kind of silk coned, only hanks. I'd pay for connig, but they just would not cone that kind of silk... it;s not a 2-ply silk, it;s a filament single.

update: measured 2300m rounded to meter. 63gr. 2-ply yarn