Spinning - BFL/Jacob

On May 1st-3rd 2015 there was a cycling event near me, the inaugural "Tour de Yorkshire". We went out to see the riders pass through Wetwang, and then caught them again just before Stamford Bridge. It was great fun, and I hope it keeps going!

Anyway, in honour of this I started some spinning. Like with the Tour de Fleece (more on that later) I aimed to spin on every day they cycled. I got something like 75% through the Jacob part of the fibre I have.

So, let me tell you about the fibre. I bought it from Fibre East last year, from the Sara's Texture Crafts stand. (She has an Etsy store, but be warned the stuff she sells is glorious!)

I decided that I was going to spin each fibre separately, and then ply them together. While this meant that I ended up with a bit leftover of the BFL, I tried it because I hoped that the yarn would be pretty.

The Jacob has a shorter staple than I'm used to, but once I got going it was pretty fun to spin. It's come out a kind of tweedy grey on the bobbin. (shown below on the right)

The BFL was, of course, a joy to spin. It's one of my favourite fibres, being a longish staple and lustrous too, it's easy to feel like a spinning champion when I'm spinning BFL. I tried to spin the same sort of grist as for the Jacob; I think I managed it most of the time.

Having let the Jacob sit for almost a year (crikey!) plying was difficult because it was almost impossible to know if the yarn was balanced. In the end I opted for a generic amount of twist with the hope that it would even out.

So, it's not quite so green as in that picture, early morning light in the winter made it look a bit funny. You can see, though, that some areas are a bit under-spun and under-plied. It's not too bad, but I think I should have spun it with a bit more twist, and then plied with a bit more twist too. I'm also not as keen on spinning 2-ply yarns, I like the shape and texture of the N-ply best. But, this 2ply will be much nicer for knitting something a bit soft. It wouldn't be ideal for a scarf because the Jacob is a bit scratchy. I'll have to think about what it might be good for.

Overall the yarn isn't as pretty as I'd hoped, but it's nice enough.

Details:
approx 309 yards of 2ply fingering weight (ish) yarn, Z spun and S plied on an Ashford Traveller, standard maiden, middle whorl.

Just a final note about the Tour de Fleece. It runs (on Ravelry) at the same time as the Tour de France, which this year is the 4th July to the 26th July. It also happens off Ravelry on various crafty blogs, so watch out for that! I'll be taking part, hopefully I'll be in the peloton! I aim to spin on every day the riders ride. I'm not trying to sprint (spinning a lot of yarn) or win the King of the Mountains (spinning something hard, a personal challenge).