Two-ply handspun Romney natural white wool yarn on the borrowed Mason Wheel
Just a quick show-off post today of some new 2-ply wool yarn I’ve spun up on the wheel I’ve been borrowing from a friend. The wool was from Shuttleworks – which is no longer in business. The wool is Romney, from the UK, in natural white.
I haven’t done much plying, since I only have one bobbin for this wheel. I REALLY wanted to see if I could make a relatively fine two-ply yarn though, so I ended up taking the yarn off the wheel onto my ball-winder in two halves… then put the two yarn cakes onto the lazy kate, and tried to ply it that way. It wasn’t 100% successful (well it worked, just not as easily as I’d like) but the result was pretty nice, and it makes me want to see if I can find two more bobbins for this wheel at some point.
Single ply handspun Romney natural white wool yarn coming off the spinning wheel and onto my ball-winder for plying.
Once the wool was plied, I put it on my makeshift warping board (a bunch of dowels stuck between books and DVDs on my bookshelf. High tech stuff) and made a skein. I tied it off at the ends to be able to wash and dry it easily, and figure-8 tied it in two spaces to make it easier to pull out and re-wind later.
Two-ply handspun Romney natural white wool yarn on my makeshift warping board preparing for setting the twist.
From there… I washed it and dried it to set the twist.. and it was ready for dyeing!
Finished two-ply handspun Romney natural white wool yarn… ready for dyeing!
I ended up making 6 skeins of this yarn, two went into my apple tree bark and twigs dyebath, two went into the apple tree leaves and twigs dyebath, and two more are yet to be dyed… but I still have lots of Romney wool sliver left – so I’ll be spinning again soon!
Pssst.. do you see the box under the yarn? That’s a work-in-progress woodburning project… stay tuned!
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Dawn's Dress Diary 
I’d love to learn to spin one day, but I tell myself that first I need to get the hang of the last new craft I decided to learn – tambour work. And (cough) finish off a few of the larger UFOs hanging about the place.
oooh tambour sounds awesome! I know what you mean though… I’ve just finished taking a few classes in different things – and they have me all re-inspired to make stuff.. but I really need to get OTHER things done first.
[…] for so long working with the borrowed Mason spinning wheel, using the drop spindle again was a bit frustrating… both because of the slower pace, but […]