Sunny Bamboo Handspun & Tips For Spinning Fine Yarn

Knitterguy asked me to post a photo of my "dripping golden yarn," that I described in an e-mail sent to him. This yarn is spun from none other than the solar, naturally dyed, Bamboo I've been working on over the past weeks. For a view of the dyed Bamboo unspun fiber and handspun singles, see the past post, Fiber Of Gold & Leslie's Sock Solution. I'm still in the process of spinning yet more Bamboo for a knitted blouse project, but thought I'd show a skein of a finished, 3-ply dripping from a hanging "Clove Drops" Dianthus that's wintering inside our living room.

In the recent past post, Winterlude, I featured a fiberish waxing moon. What better to portray a fiberish sun than this shiny Bamboo? Have I previously mentioned that Bamboo is my favorite of the newer fibers to hit the spinning market? It spins like a charm, drapes wonderfully, washes nicely, has a gorgeous luster and naturally dyes well. Knits and crochets up beautifully, too!

Melinda, who asked the great questions discussed in last week's post, also mentioned that she looks forward to the time when she can readily spin a fine enough singles, so that when plied, will be either fingering, or DK, or sport or worsted weight yarn. I thought that fine spinning would make for a good topic this time 'round.

Folks who take my workshop, "Thick, Medium and Thin - Spinning For A Specific Yarn," receive a handout that gives tips to help them keep in mind what's needed for various sizes of yarn. Here's some *suggestions for spinning thin/fine yarn:
*Please remember, these are ONLY suggestions, not rules. What matters in the end is what works well for YOU.

• Very fine yarn: 25 or more wraps per inch; 13 or more twists per inch in the finished yarn.
• Medium fine yarn: 20-24 wraps per inch; with 10-12 twists per inch in the finished yarn.
• 25-45 degree twist angle.
• Consider using a drive ratio of 9:1 or higher. However, if you have different whorls available to you, choose the one that allows you to spin your yarn in a comfortable manner. I don't know about you, but if I'm not comfortable, I'm not going to spend too long spinning.
  
• General rule of thumb: The thinner the yarn, the more twist is needed to make the yarn stable.
• No killing the baby bird. See the past post, Please Don't Kill The Baby Bird. The fibers need to be allowed to slip past each other.
• Lighter draw-in tension is needed to pull in thinner yarn.
• Slower hand movements may be required in order to allow twist to gather sufficiently. However, if you're using a small whorl with a high speed, this may not be needed at all. Couple a high speed whorl with alot of crazy fast treadling, and slower hand movements definitely won't be needed.
  
• Treadling may need to be on the faster side. Treadling speed is dependent on whorl size used (ie. If you only have a 6:1 ratio available and want to make a fine yarn, you may need to treadle fast-ish for the needed twist that makes the yarn stable. If you have a 12:1 or higher ratio available, your treadling speed can be more relaxed in order to make the same, fine yarn.)
• Consider adjusting the size of the unspun fiber mass to the fineness of the yarn. Consider stripping, especially with commercially prepared fiber, in order to have less work to draft towards achieving a fine yarn. Fiber choice and personal preference does play a part in this, however. For instance, with incredibly short cotton fibers that are commercially prepared, I often don't strip.
  
• Well-prepared fiber is essential, especially if you want a smooth, consistent yarn.
• Consider pre-drafting, especially for commercially prepared fibers, in order to insure the fibers will slip past each other nicely.
• Never underestimate the benefits of excellent light and a contrasting (to the yarn's color) cloth on your lap...they'll go a long way to help you achieve a consistently spun yarn.
  

I've purposely not talked about specific draws to use for spinning thin yarns. I believe your best bet is to begin to learn a variety drafting techniques (see the past posts Drafting Techniques For Handspinners, and Opinions On Drafting Techniques For Handspinners) and try some until you find the one that suits the size and type of yarn you wish to make. Choosing to draft in a particular way is a personal choice. I don't believe there's one magic draw for everyone that will help a spinner achieve a particular size of yarn.

Use the tools (twist angle gauge, wraps per inch stick, McMorran Balance, etc.) that fit into your working style. Never forget to trust your own eyes, hands and intuition - these are the most useful and powerful tools of all.

Save ply-backs. They're packed with information. For instance, they tell you how your singles, IF you remain consistent spinning the singles, wants to be plied in order to be balanced. See photo above that shows an index card with pertinent (to me...you write what's pertinent to YOU!) information and attached 2 and 3 ply-backs.

Save your chosen singles, shown as wrapped around the said index card. Visually I can compare the singles I'm spinning to the singles I've saved on the card.

Now here's some thoughts that may prove to be rather controversial among groups of spinners. I'm in the special "potato" camp of spinners. Let's explain it this way: Potatoes can be prepared in many ways...right? Mashed, fried, scalloped, baked, boiled, and more. I love potatoes any which way you slice or cook them - but give me knishes or french fries any hour of any day. But I digress.......I'm in a spinning camp that feels all fibers can be prepared and spun in many ways...just as many ways or more as potatoes can be prepared. In other words, I don't feel that I must or even should spin a yarn to a certain size or with a certain amount of twist just because there's a certain amount of crimps in a lock of fleece. I'm also not held hostage to a fiber's softness or coarseness as a strict dictate on how the yarn must be spun. I feel that all fibers can be spun in any number of ways. That said, of course, I want to spin a yarn that works in the project I'm envisioning. And if I'm just spinning for spinning's sake (which is a perfectly fine thing to do if I so choose, despite what THEY say...) then I will spin to make the yarn look good to me. Thank you, Rita, for your potato analogy...a very fine analogy, indeed.

In addition to the potato camp of spinners, there are many more ways to approach the making of yarn that can be pondered, tried and discussed. Some of these focus on mathematics and others on intuition. Some use a combination of both. Your goal as a spinner is to find which methods work for and please you. No opinions are wrong; no methods are wrong. What's correct are what techniques give YOU what YOU are looking for. What's right are the methods you find most enjoyable to use.

We'd love to hear your tips, tricks, thoughts, etc. on spinning fine yarn. Comment, won't you?

Now, since reality is often stranger than fiction, I'll end with what I did midstream as I was writing this post.
I live in southern, rural Vermont. Livestock abounds. I only have two, sometimes naughty, black cats but others have horses, cows, chickens, goats, you-name-it. I love to feed the wild birds daily. A neighbor's more or less free-range chickens also love that I feed the wild birds daily. We're presently experiencing a bit of a blizzard, with the piles of snow that the skiers (and the local businesses that depend on these skiers) would have wished were dumped beginning last November. But I digress...4 of the chickens didn't go home as per usual last night. Three were perched on tree branches near to the feeders. It wasn't until I went out to feed the birds today that I saw a fourth chicken was nearly up to it's neck in snow on the ground. Once the 4th chicken was freed from it's snowy prison, it, too, flew up into a tree. This would not do! The blizzard was forcasted to continue through the night and I didn't even want to contemplate what would be left of the chickens should they sleep in the trees again. Alexander, youngest of the spider, and I went down the hill to the house where we thought the chickens lived (with Alexander noting that we ate chicken yesterday so what the hell were we doing out in the middle of a blizzard? But I digress...) The young woman said she didn't realize the 4 chickens weren't in roosting with the others. The long and short of it (and how I wished I had my digital camera with me!) is that we got the half-frozen, and very thankful chickens home by putting them on a sled. This is not an everyday experience for a spider originally from Detroit. And by the way, these are not chickens that will be eaten. They are hens past their days of laying eggs and because they are darlings, are kept for pets. Hear that, Alexander?!!