Fiber keeps happening

I have been plugging away at various things here, and actually have something to show for it.   I have been spinning the BFL which I'm planning to ply with my already-spun Polwarth, and I am here to tell you two things.  First, it takes a LOT longer (for me) to spin four ounces worsted than it does to spin four ounces woollen.  A lot.  Second, the worsted-spun fiber takes up MUCH less space.  My four ounces of Polwarth (spun woollen) take up the better part of two bobbins.  I'm two-thirds or so of the way through the four ounces of BFL (spun worsted), and I think it's all going to fit on one bobbin with room to spare.  The wraps per inch look about the same, so it's got to be a function of the amount of air in worsted spun yarn.  I'll be sure to have pictures next time.

While that's been going on, I also pulled out the first of my one-ounce fiber sampler, deciding to start with the Lincoln.  I got out my trusty Pipy to do the spinning.

Lincoln is an incredibly long-staple fiber.  The staple length on this particular sample was somewhere upwards of eight inches.  And it has almost no crimp.  It feels more like holding hair than wool, in many ways; but this particular preparation was clearly wool - it had a lovely lanolin smell, not too strong, that hung about the fiber as it was spun, and my hands afterward.  For the first time, I understood why Clara Parkes describes that scent as "spicy" - it is, in a warm, cooking spices sort of way.

Because Lincoln is a prototypical longwool, and because the preparation of this sample was such a lovely combed top, I spun it worsted.  It came out fuzzier than I'd expected, given the fiber and the preparation and the spinning.  The BFL I'm spinning has less fuzz - weird, no?

I then made both a two-ply and a three-ply yarn out of the singles.

 That's the three-ply on the left, and the two-ply on the right.  The three-ply was (as one might expect) a much rounder yarn; interestingly, it seemed to me that it bloomed more nicely than the two-ply.  I'm not sure why that would be.  It also seemed to me to be more lustrous than the two-ply (luster being another hallmark of the longwools).  I do know that if I were to spin a project out of Lincoln, I would absolutely spin a three-ply.  In fact, I'm rather thinking that I'd love to source some dyed Lincoln to spin a colorwork bag out of.  I imagine that a bag like that would be absolutely stunning, and would wear like steel.  All in all, a successful first sampling session.

I have also been working away at the latest pair of Rick socks, in time for him to go out of town next week.

These are the Blunnie socks from one of last year's Rockin' Sock Club kits.  As soon as I saw them, I knew they were going to be for Rick, as he has a pair of blunnies that he loves.

These fit like a glove.  I really aimed for a tight fit this time (and they are knitted on size 0 needles), to see if that improves the wear of his socks (mainly by preventing the semi-felting of the soles of his socks, which tends to happen after a while).  We'll see.

So that's one project off the needles.  In the meantime, I've cast on for Vitamin D (a cardi), and am plugging away at the yoke.  With luck, I'll have something to show on that next time, plus I might (maybe) have finished the BFL and be ready to ply!