Friday, May 13, 2016

Perendale

IMG_0147The fifth shipment of the Sheepspot Fiber Club was Perendale, a breed I hadn’t even heard of until now. When you look it up in The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook, it’s listed in the “other sheep breeds” section toward the back. It’s a newer breed, developed in the 1950s in New Zealand for both meat and fiber. Perendale is notable because it’s a longwool, but not the sleek lustrous kind that the English longwool sheep grow… Perendale is springy and bouncy. We received roving, a carded prep.

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This colorway (called “Bird’s Nest”) is smack in the middle of my happy place. I love blue and green together, especially this bright, spring, apple green with a bit of acidity to it. This braid adds both gray and brown, making it match almost anything I could wear it with.

I figured I would want to spin this woolen because of the carded prep. Sasha tried several approaches and combed some of her fiber… but I don’t own combs so I spun it straight from the braid. Because of Sasha’s spinning notes, I decided to try to spin more loosely than I usually do – I didn’t want this yarn to end up wiry. So I worked on my 10.5:1 pulley (Judith, did you hear me use the correct word? “whorl” no more!) and tried to draft the same way I usually do for woolen spinning.

I started by dividing the braid into two sections and noticed the colors were really long, so I decided to try a fractal spinning approach. I spun the first half of the braid as it came. But for the second half, I divided the fiber into four sections – and then split each section lengthwise into three sections. Like this:IMG_0237

Then I rearranged these little sections thusly:IMG_0238

And I carefully spun them in order. The result was that the color changes were much shorter on my second singles bobbin and much longer on my first bobbin. I hoped to even everything out in the plying.IMG_0240

You can’t really tell how long the colors are in the singles above, but there they are for proof!20160502_205406

My plying bobbin was packed to the gills. I was starting to have trouble and probably should have started another. IMG_0244

And here’s my finished yarn – about 234 yards and 107 grams. It is NOT wiry! It’s kind of soft and poofy, but not in a bad way. It will totally hold together (I plied it on the 12.5:1 pulley – I always ply one pulley smaller when spinning woolen). The colors look pretty mixed in the skein, but we’ll really tell when it is knit.

I finished this skein a few days before MDSW and I took it with me to show Sasha and Kat. It TOTALLY got the reaction every spinner/knitter wants to get – a loud, audible gasp that turned heads. Thank you, Sasha!IMG_2529

And now the eternal question… what will it become? I agree with Sasha – I think its future is a hat of some sort. But we will see. Suggestions always welcome.

And if you’re intrigued, she still has Perendale in the shop!

3 comments:

  1. Spinning certainly has a language all its own and I don't understand a lot of it, but I do know beautiful yarn when I see it -- and this is it!

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  2. I agree with Bonny. So cool to see you do the things you do with wool and spinning. That colorway is very "you," for sure!

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  3. Seeing this yarn in person was really fun. It is beautiful yarn, Janelle! I love how you managed the colors!

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