Suriland!

Remember this pound of gorgeous fiber I won from PLY Magazine last fall? It is Suriland roving from Fancy Fibers Farm in Farmersville, Texas, a 50/50 blend of Suri alpaca and Shetland wool. The fiber came in four balls, about 4 oz each. I didn’t bother to weigh them. I just spun each ball onto a single bobbin. I spun long draw on my 14:1 whorl, intending to make 2-ply yarn.

The only problem is that I have only 4 Schacht bobbins that fit my wheel, and I needed to reserve one to play the yarn onto. In the past, when I’ve spun more than 8 oz of fiber for a project, I work in 1 oz sections and transfer them to these little storage bobbins. I could have done that here, but I didn’t want to split that last ball of fiber over 3-4 storage bobbins. Basically, I wanted a larger storage bobbin than I had.

When I asked the internet for advice, it directed me to this newish product called Bobbins Up. These plastic storage bobbins hold 5 oz of fiber and include a nifty insert that you can fit directly into your drill bit holder to power it. This is a significant improvement over the rubber-band-on-a-screw-bit situation I have now. Here is the bobbin with the insert out so you can see it:

Aren’t all these singles pretty together?

I plied them up and got a total of 960 yards of 2-ply yarn that weighs 438 grams (I have a little bit of extra singles on one bobbin).

This is almost certainly not enough yarn for a sweater for S1. I would buy more, but there is no more of the red fiber left for sale from Fancy Fibers on Etsy. I think I’ll wait until next season and see if they make more in a complementary color. Maybe I can put together a two-color sweater. Not Fair Isle (that would be VERY heavy and warm), but something else. Hmmm…