Merino/Tencel 70/30

I got home from Scotland last Thursday night, and promptly went down to the Bay to check on the house and catch up on my sleep. I took advantage of the quiet weekend to spin the other half of the merino-tencel top I started a couple of weeks ago, and ply it. I’m still looking for a true laceweight, and need either more patience, a faster wheel, or more practice.

Here’s the resulting skein, a heavy fingering/sportweight, that will make a nice scarf or shawl.



The merino-tencel blend has a soft silky hand and lofty feel, despite being worsted spun. The fiber has a lovely sheen and only the tiniest of halo before being knit up. I haven’t swatched the yarn yet, but have a couple of possible simple lace projects in mind for it.



Details:

Fiber: Ashland Bay Merino/Tencel 70/30, Blueberry, a deep blue-purple blended with pale silvery tencel

Purchased from: Rocktown Yarns, Harrisonburg

Spun with: Louet Victoria

Whorl / Tension: 12:1 / Low-medium tension

WPI/Gauge/TPI: 16wpi sportweight / 7tpi

Plies/Method: 2-ply / standard

Yardage/Finished Wt: ~ 400yds / 3.5oz

Started: 6/15/2007

Completed: 7/1/2007

Notes:

The singles were spun with fairly high twist and then plied with lower twist. I had a devil of a time with the wheel while plying, as it kept sticking and binding up and having issues with the tension. I’m going to start looking at different wheels as the Victoria is a great little wheel, but seems to be limited by its weight and top speed. I'd love to hear from others if they have had better luck spinning laceweight with this wheel.

The merino-tencel was easy enough to spin, but trying to get a laceweight from this wheel seems like a lot of work. There is a high speed flyer due out for the Victoria, but I'm considering investing that money in a more production-oriented wheel and saving this for lighter duty as it is.

Spin 9 and an update

I finally finished spinning the Merino-Tencel blend which has been on both the Rose and the spindle, so here's my progress report. As usual, there's a full description of the process on the blog (or will be as soon as I get there). This is the last spinning report you'll have from me for a little while: We're headed stateside for four weeks as of Sunday. I'll have news about fiber and fibery stuff when I get back, but don't look for that until mid-July.

In the meantime, here's the latest. I'm posting the Flickr photo which has a couple of notes in it, so feel free to click over and get those as well. I've marked a section of loose ply in this photo, but there's a better example in the photo right before it. I've added a note to show you what I mean there. I think the loose ply happened when I got tired, and wasn't clever enough to quit. With an odd interruption here and there, it took me the better part of 9 hours to ply the 1100 yards, including stopping here and there to untwist a ply and straighten out a kink. Even so, I didn't get them all.



Folks, I love this blend. If it weren't for the stretches where I seem to have lost focus and forgotten to check the twist in the ply, and the occasional spot where a thinner single slipped through in a kink during the ply (creating a spiral), I'd be in love with this yarn. I haven't given up on fixing the underplied sections (either by running the skein back through the wheel and resetting the twist, or by cutting out that long stretch and handling it separately), but it's not something I have time to look at right now.

Here are the stats:
Fiber: Merino-Tencel (70-30) roving from Kendig Cottage.
Finished Weight: 432 grams/15.23 ounces
Yardage: ca 1100, 2-ply
WPI: 18.
Spun on: Rose and the .7 ounce Bossie.

I think that generally speaking, it's the most consistent I've done yet, but it is also the softest. It feels great. The three-ply merino-silk in Spin 7 has a cool, crisp feel which must come from the Tussah. But the Tencel creates an incredibly soft yarn while giving it the shine of silk, and I'd LOVE a sweater made of this blend.