#ryå lambswool

[milkweedman]

Pulling the seeds off more milkweed fiber. I've been distributing most of them outside so far, and will probably continue to toss them on empty dirt nearby as I do more.

Sorry for the terrible lighting, but I have also been spinning a blend of some. This is ryå mixed with it--I've done two rolags so far, the first one with only a little milkweed and the second that about half and half, and they're both spinning up super well. They also mixed in very easily and obligingly.

Unfortunately woke up and the spindle tip had snapped, so I have to take a break while the glue dries.

[milkweedman]

Little bit of spinning today--I want to start transitioning to yellow now, but I realized the skein of hand combed ryå that I was hoping to use was way too thick, so I spun up the rest of the ryå combing waste that I have into this two ply. None of the colors here are accurate, sorry. It's a nice sunshiney yellow, my camera just sucks and my room doesn't get very good light.

This is only 42 yards to im sure I'll need to spin some more soon, but for now I just wanted to get started.

[milkweedman]

The colors !!! Im so happy with this skein. The yellow ply is the combing waste (carded into rolags as i went) from a ryå fleece I dyed with yellow onion skin, the other ply is a batt @mimsiical helped me make on their drum carder, and is a blend of merino, corriedale, jacob, silk, and probably some other stuff ive already forgot.

It's 244 yards (223 meters) of maybe a heavy fingering weight. Didn't weigh it as my scale is under a bunch of other stuff

Also, got a picture of that miniskein that was ryå at one end and rambouillet at the other. Really happy with it, too !

[milkweedman]

The dyed ryå lambs fleece ! Left is alum mordanted, right is a homemade copper mordant, both using yellow onion skin as the dye. Am also so happy with the yarn, although I have zero idea what to do with 100 yards of laceweight singles.

Im not sure how a stripey sock yarn with these two colors would look so it might end up being two pairs, one primarily yellow with orange heel and toe and vice versa. We shall see

[milkweedman]

It's not blocked yet or anything but im rly happy with how this one turned out--i didnt think id like the colors as much as i do (bear in mind these are 'nighttime with flash' photos, i will take better ones later hopefully). No idea what i'd do with it but thats just par for the course.

What im not sure of is my plying job. The non-yellow ply rested for like at least a couple weeks so it was very limp feeling, and i usually dont rest my yarn more than a day or two before plying (and always unintentionally) so i really dont know if i over plied it or underplied or if its fine and will look great once blocked. Total mystery lol.

[milkweedman]

I seem to have found the key to steadily combing large amounts of fleece without getting bored (it helps that this ryå only needs 3 passes with my usual technique, and ive found a way to turn that into 2 passes most of the time).

I have a massive pile of top but only a large handful of combing waste bc every two or so nests of top i card the combing waste into a rolag and then spin it.

For some reason the fact that the top is actually a byproduct for me spinning ryå rolags makes it much less... idk, whatever it is that makes me get bored and frustrated after getting like 1/10th of what i need.

Also, the yarn im getting from the rolags is so nice.... super easy to draft. Looking forward to spinning the top, it should be great.

[milkweedman]

Things proceed apace. The wool in that pic is freshly washed--by the time I got up this morning it was almost dry. The yellow onion skin dye is very dark looking but I think there's still a bunch of color left in the skins, so I've decanted a pitcher's worth so i can add more water to the pot. Looks like I'll definitely have leftover dye. Am trying to decide if it's worth it to attempt to get a powdered dye from it or not. We'll see.

[milkweedman]

Sort of buttered popcorn colorway, lol. 3 combed tops, first one entirely rambouillet, last one entirely ryå, middle one a blend. The ryå actually spun into a super robust singles, really wasnt expecting it. It's my first time spinning some of the ryå top ive been combing, so.

Undertwisted a bit but its very pretty

[milkweedman]

well, i messed up. i spun up a sample of rya just to the knit the toe of a sock with, which went great, and then decided to spin the remainder of the top i’ve been making, and uh. spun it way too thick. didn’t actually remember at all the thickness of the sample, so i just spun A Thickness, and ended up with like, worsted weight 3 ply. except it’s actually the same diameter as the sample because i added tons and tons of extra twist, because at that point i was very annoyed with myself and decided why not.

It’s currently setting, but I somewhat doubt that it’ll be stretchy enough for socks. it wasn’t really stretchy at all before blocking, so.

Have a feeling I may have made the yarn for another bag or something, lol

[milkweedman]

It's not the best picture (had to up the contrast like crazy to pick up any colors, so imagine the colors of the second picture and the clouds of the first) but the sunset was beautiful today. Tried to make a batt that looked a little like it but in the end got a bit carried away with the silk.

It's mostly an unidentified pink longwool, various colors of dyed ryå lambswool, mohair, and silk. Theres also a bit of what i assume is merino and some of the gray southdown that i just recieved in the mail. I intended to just pull it off as punis, but I got one and it was almost impossible to remove from the sticks, so i just pulled it off as a batt after that.

The puni (forgot to use flash) as i pulled it off, and then once drafted out a bit into a spinnable form. The colors and shine of the second one are much more accurate to life.

Eta: have been spinning the puni on a supported spindle and am here to report it is an absolute misery to spin in that it involves lots of pulling really hard to draft. I think it might be better on my wheel where i have more space (rly long staple length + supported spindle where my hands are never more than 6 inches apart while spinning = no draft. only pull.)

[milkweedman]

Think i might have experienced a brief moment of insanity wherein i bought another pair of combs, a 1 pound raw rambouillet fleece, and started washing the ryå lambswool fleece as well as making the dye for it (onion skins, planning to mordant half the wool with copper and the other half maybe with iron, not sure yet, so i can get stripey socks out of it). All in the space of about 20 minutes.

And then once i had done that i made a rolag to spin.