My Shetland Handspun Palette

The Whites: an unknown sheep, Angie, and Aurora.

The Silvers: Handspun from a yearling (left), and Sass

The Greys: Nikki (left), and from roving.

The Fawns: Peeps, an adult fawn, Korny, and a fawn lamb.

The Moorits: From roving (left), and Henna.

The Blacks: The Iset (left), and from roving.

These are my 15 Shetland yarns. They represent not only a glorious range of natural colors, but many textures as well. In fact, I'd have to say that Shetland sheep appear to offer the widest variety of fleece of any breed I've ever worked with.

Colorwise, my samples are not exhaustive. Shetlands are recognized to have 11 distinct colors, and 30 patterns and markings. That could make endless combinations!

In regards to fleece types, NASSA (North American Shetland Sheepbreeders Association), states that there are three fleece types recognized in American Shetlands: kindly or single-coated, long and wavy, and beaver or double-coated. All of these are represented in my yarns.

My spinning plan was that all my Shetland yarns should be approximately the same WPI (wraps per inch.) While semi-successful at this, it was harder than I anticipated, due to the wide range of fleece characteristics such as crimp, wave, elasticity, and loft.

My knitting plan is something Fair Isle; either a vest or a sweater. I'll start by knitting gauge swatches, which will probably help me choose which yarns I will end up using, as I will want to use the ones closest in grist. I'll also need to figure what kind of yardage I actually have, as I begin to look at patterns. So the planning may take awhile. Hopefully I'll be able to make some progress before our weather gets too warm.

© 2008 Leigh's Fiber Journal

A Silver Shetland

Last night I finished spinning and washing my yarn from this lovely silver Shetland fleece from Cathy. This one is different from any of the other Shetlands I've worked with so far, due to the length of the staples.

The staple length for the sample Cathy sent ranged anywhere from 4 to 11 inches! She had labeled it "from Martha. Lamb or yearling." Too long to be lamb, I did a little research to find out the average growth of Shetland fleece in a year. According to Fournier and Fournier's In Sheep's Clothing, a Shetland fleece ranges from 2 to 5 inches in length. That would mean that this particular sheep missed a shearing! [Update 1/14/08 - Cathy was able to find out about this. This was from an annual shearing, so it is only one year's growth! And this isn't the only fleece she has like this.]

The fleece was wavy rather than crimpy, with waves varying between one and three per inch. It was dual coated, and the undercoat was lusciously soft. I was tempted to separate the two coats and just spin that inner coat. However, impatience won the day so that I decided to spin the two coats together. The Shetland dual coated fleeces I've worked with have had coarser outer coats, but still not so coarse as other dual coated breeds. And not so coarse as to make them undesirable for knitwear.

The color ranged from white to medium grey, with black fibers scattered throughout. These black fibers were the other factor effecting softness, as they tended to be coarser. I decided to drum card it to blend the color. Due to the fiber length, I cut the staples longer than 8 inches in half.

The spinning particulars:

* Wheel - Kromski Minstrel double drive
* Ratio - 8.5 to 1
* Spinning style - worsted
* Singles - 28 WPI
* 2-ply - 16 WPI
* Plied twist angle - 28º
* Weight of yarn - 4.5 ounces
* Yardage - 214.6 yards


The silver color is lovely I think.

Next time, I'll get out all my Shetland yarns so we can take a look at the various colors. In the meantime, I'm going to start swatching and looking at patterns.

© 2008 Leigh's Fiber Journal

Yarns From the Shetland Rovings

I have three more yarns to add to my collection of Shetland colors. You may remember that I had three commercial rovings, leftover from spinning for my Rare Breed Sweater (which is almost done!!!) ....
.... which have become three yarns....

I didn't make extensive spinning notes on these, but I can tell you that the black and grey are British Shetland. Their fibers measured five to six inches in length. I got both of these from Woodland Woolworks. The black had some interesting white fibers scattered here and there throughout. I bought the moorit from Paradise Fibers (way back when Kate owned it) and it's fiber length averages four inches.

All three were quick to spin (ah the joys of pre-prepared fiber!) They were spun to match the size of the rest of my Shetland yarns, so that their 2-ply WPI ranges from 14 to 16.

One thing that surprised me was that when I washed the yarns, the water was dirty! I've never had this happen with commercial rovings, but they washed beautifully as you can see.

So, at this point I have 14 yarns, each a different, lovely Shetland color. One more color to go, and then I'm ready to start swatching!

© 2007 Leigh's Fiber Journal

Last Minute Shetland Additions!

Looky what I found in my mail box this morning!

These are from two different silver and grey Shetland fleeces, all washed and waiting to be spun!

These, of course, came from Cathy, whose contributions are largely responsible for my Shetland Yarn Collection (soon to be a Fair Isle something or other.)

The sample on the left is a little more of this lamb fleece, and the one on the right is either lamb or yearling from another source. Hmm. Which means I'll have one more yarn for another thumbnail to fill out my yarn collage!

These will keep me busy with spinning, as I still have Christmas weaving and knitting to finish. Plus, my Rare Breed Sweater needs to be finished too. Still, I'm excited about all the Shetland colors I have to work with. :)

© 2007 Leigh's Fiber Journal

My Shetland Yarns (So Far)

Here are thumbnails to give an idea of the Shetland yarns I have so far:

In real life the sizes (WPI) of the yarns are pretty close; the size discrepancies you see here are due to my scanner and camera.

All of these were spun from the Shetland fleece samples from Cathy, the enabler, who is generously offering to nurture my Shetland addiction with more samples if needed. However, I also have three Shetland rovings.....

... all of which are different colors than the yarns. These are rather generically labeled grey, black, and moorit. I have about eight ounces each of the grey and black, and about four ounces of the moorit. So including all the previously spun samples, I can have enough yarn for just about anything I want to make.

However, first things first. After I spin some of the rovings I may succumb to the temptation to knit a swatch or two, but I still have those socks to finish and also my Rare Breed Sweater. So you know what I'll be thinking about while I finish those two projects!

© 2007 Leigh's Fiber Journal

Last of the Shetland Fleece Samples

OK. This is the last of the Shetland fleece samples from Cathy, and I have loved working with this one. True, it has had quite a bit of VM and a few second cuts, but it's softness has been heavenly and it's color variations a delight to the eye.

If I had the entire fleece, I would want to either just tease or pick it, and then spin it by the handful, the way I do angora rabbit. This would have mixed the colors as I grabbed them randomly, and created a lovely variegated yarn. However, with just a little over 3.5 ounces to work with, I wanted to use it with my other Shetland yarns in a project. So I decided to drumcard the fiber to blend the colors.

This closeup shows the lovely range of light to dark brown, all with champagne tips. A single coated fleece, it was the softest so far. Below is the color they all blended together to become.

The yarn:

The particulars:

* Weight of clean fiber - 3.6 ounces
* Staple length - 1 - 3 inches
* Crimp - 6 per inch
* Wheel - Kromski Minstrel double drive
* Spinning ratio - 8.5 to 1
* Twist angle - 28º
* Singles - 28 WPI
* 2-ply - 13 WPI
* Yardage - 254+ yards

So I now have three shades of fawn yarn:

Even though I've finished spinning all the fleece samples, I still have some Shetland rovings that I bought for my Rare Breed Sweater. My next step will be to take an inventory of my Shetland yarn collection, start spinning some of those rovings, and think about possible knitting projects. I have something Fair Isle in mind, I'm just not sure about any of the details yet.

© 2007 Leigh's Fiber Journal

A Fawn Shetland Sample

This next sample of Shetland fleece, Cathy had labeled "fawn." When I first examined it, I was puzzled at this. If it was fawn, it was a very light one, but it didn't look like the other fawn Shetland samples. In those, the individual fibers themselves were colored.


This fawn sample (on the right) appeared white with cream tips, and had black and reddish-brown fibers scattered throughout. These darker fibers were much coarser than the white/cream. I was curious about this coloring, but couldn't find it listed on the Shetland colors and patterns resources I've been using.

The staples were from four to six inches in length, with one to four crimps per inch. There was a very nice luster to the fleece.

I had washed this sample along with the last one I posted about (which is the white one on the left in the top photo) and it was fluffy and clean and ready to drumcard. The fleece was open, but full of vegetable matter. I ran it through the drumcarder twice, and then the batts were ready to spin.

The particulars:
* Weight of clean fiber - 4.5 ounces
* Wheel - Kromski Minstrel double drive
* Ratio - 8.5 to 1
* Twist angle - 28º
* Singles - 30 WPI
* 2-ply - 15 WPI
* Weight of yarn - 4.5 ounces
* Yardage - 248.75 yards

The color of the yarn actually looks more to me like a warm grey than fawn (photo only semi-accurate). Fortunately there won't be a test on this! I'm just happy to be getting a nice variety of Shetland colors for some project in the near future.

© 2007 Leigh's Fiber Journal

Another Shetland White

OK. So here is the information on that Shetland yarn I was plying when I showed you how I ply from a center-pull ball.

This dual coated fleece measured anywhere between three and seven inches. The crimp in some places was nonexistent (as you can tell from the photo on the left), but in some staples it measured four crimps per inch.

Besides being loaded with vegetable matter (VM), the most noticeable characteristic of the raw fleece was that it had a thick, matted looking layer of yellow at the butt ends of the staples. Fortunately, this separated easily, though it was greasy enough that I decided to wash it before removing it all.

Since I had parts of two different fleeces in the bag and the white was dirty enough as to be indistinguishable from the fawn, I decided to wash them together and sort them out afterward. When I discovered that I didn't have enough mesh bags for it all, I also decided to try this method of machine washing.

The result was beautifully clean and fluffy. I could easily separate the two colors and decided to spin the white first. I used my dog comb to comb out the second cuts and much of the VM. (Next time I have a VM laden fleece however, I'm going to try out Laritza's method of dealing with it!)

I only had to run it through my drum carder one time to prepare it for spinning. With that it was delightful to spin (except for still having VM to pick out), very soft and silky to the hand.

This photo is not entirely accurate colorwise, but the closest I could manage with my camera (I do miss my scanner!) The singles were 30 wraps per inch, and the 2-ply is 17. Of the 100 grams of processed fleece, I ended up with more than 218 yards of yarn.

Colorwise, how does it compare to my other Shetland whites?

Interestingly, they are all different. Until now I would have thought that white is white is white. Not so! Which makes Shetland all the more intriguing to me. I love this breed.

© 2007 Leigh's Fiber Journal

A Shetland Hodge Podge

At least that's what it seemed like when I went to fetch out the white Shetland fleece from this bag....

....from Cathy last July. I've already posted about that intrigueing blackish/brown fleece here, so the next one on my mind was the white one, especially after my interesting discovery about those Shetland whites.

However, when I dumped the remaining fleece out of the bag, they were both dirty enough that I couldn't tell which was which.

What I did notice, was that quite a bit of the fleece looked like this.....

.... with thick, matted, yellow stained butts. I took a dog comb to them, and the combed out easy enough.

I decided to wash both fleeces together, and try to sort them out afterward. I was able to do so with a little help....

One fleece is quite white, while the other is white with cream tips and black and reddish fibers in it. The difference is subtle....

I will drumcard and spin these separately. More on that later.

© 2007 Leigh's Fiber Journal

An Interesting Shetland Fleece

This next Shetland fleece sample caught my eye as soon as I first saw it. It was sent to me by Cathy as a part of this batch.

It is an adult fleece, and is the coarsest to touch so far. It is a dual coated fleece, with the typical triangular shaped staples of such a fleece. The fiber length ranged from three to six inches, and this fleece was full of VM (vegetable matter.) As you can see, the crimp is too disorganized to count!

At first glance, the word "black" comes to mind to describe the color. Not unsurprisingly, the tips are sunbleached, anywhere from blond to brown. A closer examination however, shows white fibers mixed in throughout the fleece. The amount of white varied throughout the sample, but it was there nonetheless. In fact, it is the white fibers that contribute to it's coarseness. The bits with less white, are softer. This coloration got me curious about the various Shetland sheep colors.

Shetland sheep are recognized to have eleven distinct colors, and 30 color patterns, but I was at a loss to figure out which one this fleece was. After a chat with Tina from Marietta Shetlands, I determined that this fleece must be from a sheep which has what is called the iset pattern. This refers to a dark colored fleece with many white fibers giving it a bluish cast from a distance. I also learned from Tina, that Shetlands can change their color over the years! What a versatile breed for a spinner's flock, eh?

One thing that I had to deal with before spinning was all the VM. It was loaded with it. I know some spinners who refuse to deal with such a fleece, but the color was too lovely to not spin it. I was able to get a lot of it out with a vigorous shaking before washing. I knew from experience that more would come out in processing and spinning.

Now, I'm going to take a little side trip here, because I learned something when I washed my sample. Back in the day, when I first learned to spin, I read somewhere that fleece washing temperature must be kept very hot, to keep the lanolin melted. The rational was that if the temperature dropped too low, the lanolin would begin to re-solidify on the fiber.

Well, with this sample I set it to soaking in hot, hot water and a large squirt of Dawn dish liquid as usual. Then I went to do something else, got distracted, and forgot about the fleece. In fact, I forgot about it so completely that by the time I got back to it, the initial soaking water was barely lukewarm. This dismayed me because I'm not real keen on exposing wool fibers to an extreme temperature change (as in an immediate second very hot soak), as I want to avoid the possibility of felting. So I continued rinsing with cool water and spread it out on a towel to dry.

When I went back later to turn the fleece, I was delighted to discover that the it was wonderfully clean and not greasy! The fear of the grease reforming on the fibers is evidently unfounded. What a happy revelation. This will make my fleece washing much more relaxed in the future. (And speaking of lanolin, for a very interesting article on it, click here.)

Anyway, here's the yarn. It doesn't look bluish close up, but it is a lovely color of grey.

The particulars:
* Preparation - drumcarded to blend colors
* Spinning ratio - 8.5 to 1
* Singles - 28 WPI
* 2-ply - 14 WPI
* Washed weight - 50 grams
(I forgot to weight it before washing :o
* Yardage - almost 93

© 2007 Leigh's Fiber Journal

7th Shetland Sample - Peeps

I am a sucker for lamb's fleece. Of course it is almost always soft, but there is something else about it, something that evokes the "awwww" factor in me. This fleece was no exception.

This lovely sample is from a Shetland lamb named Peeps. It is the last of the original Shetland fleece samples from Cathy. The staples in this pic are from the washed batch. Before washing, the fleece actually looked fawn in color. My, but how could a little lamb get so dirty. I can envision a very playful little fellow.

This fleece was dual coated. The length varied from three to five inches. The crimp was anywhere from three to seven per inch, depending on what part of the sample I measured. Some of the tips had sweet little curls on them (not really pictured here.) Despite all the dirt, there was very little vegetable matter (VM) in it. I lost nine-tenths of an ounce of weight in washing out the lanolin and dirt, but was delighted in the lovely color and luster.

I experimented a bit with the size for the singles, before figuring out that about 30 wraps per inch gave me a 2-ply the size I was aiming for. I used my Kromski Minstrel (which seems to be the wheel I always reach for, even though I have an Ashford Traditional too), and the 8.5:1 spinning ratio.

The results were over 103 yards of lovely soft, 16 WPI 2-ply.

It has a lovely hand and luster. It is moderately elastic. Compared to the other two white Shetland samples, Peeps is more of an oyster or pearl color. I know that's not a Shetland sheepy term, but if you take a careful look at the three yarns below, you can see three different whites!

The colors above are fairly accurate and the difference is subtle. You may remember that Aurora was the one with the canary stain, and Angie was the white lamb. Peeps is more of an off-white, perhaps having a hint of the palest fawn? I'm not sure! It has been interesting however, to compare them.

What's next? I'm going to start working on the next batch of Shetland fleece samples, also from Cathy. More on those soon.

© 2007 Leigh's Fiber Journal

Shetland Sampling Continued - Angie

OK. Let's see. I have to stop and think for a moment about where I am in the scheme of spinning the Shetland fleece samples that Cathy sent me. What I do know is that this one, Angie, is the second to the last of the...... let's see, seven original samples she sent me.

This one is a dual coated lamb fleece. A thorough washing revealed a lovely white with a lustrous outer coat. There were actually two types of staples in the sample, the dual coated ones being triangular in shape, and the shorter ones being more rectangular.

I started out with 1.8 ounces of raw fleece, and lost about 1/2 ounce of lanolin and dirt after washing.

The fiber length ranged from 3 to 6 inches, the shorter parts being downier. The crimp measured 2 to 3 per inch. The color was consistent throughout. It was sound, including the tips.

I prepared the fleece as I have the others, with my drum carder. I spun it the same way I've spun all the others as well, on my Kromski Minstrel with the 8.5 to 1 ratio spinning whorl. After a little sampling, I settled on singles at 30 WPIs. This gave me a 2-ply yarn of 16 WPI, which is my target size. My yardage is almost 76 yards for 1.2 ounces of washed fleece.

As you can see from the scan at the left, it is the most inconsistent Shetland yarn I've spun so far. This was because I found myself absent mindedly spinning finer and finer. At one point I measured my singles at 37 wraps per inch. Of course, when a thin single is plied with a thicker single, the result is more textured. It's a technique used for spinning some designer yarns, but this wasn't supposed to be that!

So now I have one sample left to spin from the original seven. It is also white. I also have samples from a second batch of Shetland fleeces, also from Cathy. These are white, black, and fawn. I've decided that some of the white will have to be dyed. I'm thinking about a light blue at the moment, but I'm open.

© 2007 Leigh's Fiber Journal

Shetland Update - Henna

Henna's is the fifth of the seven Shetland fleece samples Cathy sent me (not counting this.). Working with samples instead of whole fleeces has been wonderful because each sample makes a fairly quick project, easy to accomplish in only a couple of sessions. One day to wash and dry. A couple of hours on another day to drum card it all to blend the colors. Then spinning and plying on the afternoon of another day.

Henna's is a moorit fleece with tips sunbleached to a lovely honey color. In looking back through my Shetland notes, I can tell you that this is the longest fleece of all the samples, measuring up to seven inches in length. There is crimp in part of the sample, about five per inch. The tips were wavy at two per inch. It was a very clean sample, with very little VM. There were very few second cuts and the tips were sound.

What is interesting about this fleece is that it is dual coated. You get a hint of this by the triangular shaped staples. The downy undercoat fills out the base of the triangle, while the long outer coat tapers to its point.

Dual coated fleeces are usually pretty easy to separate by hand. I simply hold the tip firmly in one hand and comb out the undercoat with a dog comb. A flicker works too, but I tend to bust my knuckles every time I use one, so I usually avoid it if possible. Below you can see the two coats separated, with the outer coat on the right, and the inner coat on the left.

One thing that really impressed me with this fleece was how soft the outer coat is. I've worked with several dual coated breeds before: Icelandic, Navajo-Churro, Hebridean, and North Ronaldsay. Each of these has a coarse outer coat which is long and can be spun into a nice, hard wearing rug yarn, while the inner coats are much softer and suitable for sweaters and mittens and things. With Henna's fleece however, the outer coat was soft enough that I decided to drumcard the two coats together.

My singles were 30 wraps per inch, about the same size as several of my other Shetland yarns. However, even though there wasn't a lot of crimp in the sample, the 2-ply washed up to be 13 wraps per inch, a little larger than my target size. Crimpier fibers seems to result in more elastic yarns, but that wasn't the case here. I'm guessing that the finer inner coat increased the loft of the yarn more than I anticipated.

I ended up with a little over 78 yards of yarn. It has less luster than my other Shetland yarns, but I love the color.

This very nice close-up, by the way, is courtesy of Xsane, my Linux scanner software. I'm beginning to think that this particular program has a mind of its own, because I am very inconsistent with the size of my scans. Or perhaps I'm just not clever enough to figure it out. Of course, I could always read the online manual and follow the instructions, but who wants to do that. I'd rather spend my time playing with fiber.

© 2007 Leigh's Fiber Journal

Shetland Update - Sass

Although most of my energy and effort have been directed toward learning and weaving on my new countermarche loom, spinning and knitting have been going on too. For spinning progress, I am pleased to report that I am continuing to work on the Shetland samples Cathy sent me.

The lovely silver sample on the left is from Sass. It is absolutely the softest sample so far. It is a lovely light grey with white tips. Length ranges from 3.5 to 4 inches with 7 crimps per inch. As you can see, the tips are wavy at about 4 per inch. The staples in the scan on the left have already been washed. They are sound, open, and very soft. It is a single coated fleece.

As with the other samples, I drumcarded it to blend the color thoroughly. I seem to have misplaced my sample card at the moment, so I don't recall the measurement of the singles, but the 2-ply yarn is 16 wraps per inch (WPI).

As I take a close look at the yarn, it seems to me that it is the most inconsistent of all the Shetland samples I've spun so far. However, I have found that knitting will hide most of the imperfections. I use to worry about the slubs and inconsistencies in my yarn, and how they would effect a knitted fabric. While I (as spinner and knitter) always find my eye drawn to them, it was quite an eye opener when I once deliberately spun a slubby yarn for knitting. I was dismayed when most of the slubs pretty much disappeared into the final fabric. I realized that to feature the slubs, I needed to make them more pronounced. The little slubs and in consistencies in this yarn will at best, lend a homey, handspun quality to the final garment, considered quite desirable by some.

As spinners, we work hard to produce beautifully consistent yarns. We admire the consistency of other spinners' yarns and apologize for our beginnerish looking attempts. Oddly, a perfectly consistent yarn is often rejected by the nonspinner as being "too perfect." In the eyes of some, it is that handcrafted quality which make the yarn desirable in the first place. How ironic is that!

Thanks to Mabel Ross, I finally realized that my goal as a spinner all boils down to who is in control; me or the fiber? Am I able to achieve the yarn I want, or does the fiber alone dictate the end result. What an eye opener it was to try and spin a thick slubby yarn after working long and hard toward perfecting a consistent fine yarn. I think some of you would agree with me that it is more difficult to spin a consistent thick yarn than a consistent fine one. And to control the size and placement of slubs is a quite the challenge.

I can't say that I am always in charge. It is the goal I work toward, but each new fiber or breed presents its own set of challenges. And this is what keeps me interested in spinning. Hopefully there will always be something new to learn and experiment with. At least that's what I'm counting on.

© 2007 Leigh's Fiber Journal

Shetland Update - Aurora

Time for a quick Shetland spinning update! This next fleece sample was pretty interesting. It was from a lamb named Aurora. Cathy told me it was a second shearing and she believed that the color had been mislabeled. It almost looked as though it could be fawn, but it turned out that it was just pretty dirty. ( And from reading Kathy L's blog, I do know that Shetland lambs love to play!)

The unwashed fleece (left) had quite a few bands of color to it, from reddish to yellow to dark brown. It's length averaged about 3 to 4 inches, with about 12 crimps per inch. It contained some second cuts and some vegetable matter (VM).

I gave it an extra washing soak in Dawn dish liquid and three rinses. The various pseudo fawn bands washed out to a lovely creamy white, but the yellow bands remained! You can still see them in the washed sample on the right (though in real life they are darker than in the scan.)

The yellow stains I had encountered before always washed out. These are called "yolk" and are actually lanolin. Since this stain didn't wash out, I wondered if it could be what is known as "canary" stain. So I turned to the stain chart on page 174 of In Sheep's Clothing. This could definitely be canary stain.

A little Internet research turned up lots of information, but I found this article to be the most helpful. I learned that this stain is actually caused by organisms which attack and discolor the fleece. How serious this is in evaluating the fleece for handspinning depends upon whom one talks too. Some seem to think it harmless since the organism is killed with soap and hot water anyway, while others would discard the entire fleece from such animals. Evidently it can be severe enough to weaken the fiber considerably, but in Aurora's sample, this wasn't the case. Since the stain didn't effect the integrity of the staples, I went ahead and processed my sample.

To blend in the stain, I drum carded the entire sample thoroughly. The batts were a wonderfully creamy color, almost like fresh butter, a very pale yellow-tinted white. My only problem was neps, which was a little frustrating. Of course, after I finished drumcarding the entire batch, I went back and looked at my fleece assessment. There I saw that I had highlighted a comment I had written - "! Tips weak, cut off before carding !"

Note to self - always remember to read notes to self.

The spinning however, was wonderfully smooth. The fiber was silky soft and lovely to handle. From my experience with Nikki's fleece, I was able to better compensate for the crimp and elasticity of the fiber. For Aurora's fleece, I ended up with a 2-ply of 16 wraps per inch, which was my target size. That was a relief. Interestingly, it's "shrinkage" differed from the first two samples (Nikki and Korny), as you may recall from this photo. Aurora's is the skein in the middle.

And so my Shetland yarn collection continues to grow. I try to spin, or at least process some fiber sometime during each day. It is a welcome break from the loom wrestling I've been doing lately. But, more on that next time.

© 2007 Leigh's Fiber Journal

Shetland Update - Nikki

I reckon I'd better get a quick Shetland spinning update in here before I get too far behind. I'm spinning faster than I'm posting.

Nikki's is a grey lamb fleece . I'm a little partial to greys and exceptionally partial to lamb fleece, so this one was attractive to me from the git-go.

The color is lovely. The raw staple on the left shows the white base and grey mid-section. The tips were sunbleached brown, though that is difficult to see in the scan.

Fiber length in my sample ranged from about 2 and 3/4 to 4 inches. The crimp was pretty consistent throughout, measuring 6 to 7 crimps per inch. The tips were wispy and wavy, and measured about 4 per inch.

The staples were open with no cotting, and sound with no breaks of tenderness. Very inviting to spin.

It washed up beautifully. I used two very, very hot soaks in Dawn dish liquid, followed by three rinses. I put a glug of white vinegar into the second rinse.

I drum carded the entire sample to blend the colors well. I used my dog comb to open up the staples before putting them through the carder. Some of the brown tips combed off, so they didn't effect the final color as much as I'd hoped.

My goal is to spin all of my Shetland samples about the same size for a knitting project next winter. You might remember that Korny, my first Shetland sample was spun to about 16 WPI. My singles averaged 28 WPI. Nikki however, is crimpier (6 to 7 per inch as compared with Korny's 4 to 6) and gives me a much loftier and more elastic yarn. To try and compensate, I spun my grey singles at 30 WPI. This looked pretty good on the bobbin when twisted back on itself, but after being washed, my Nikki yarn measures 12 WPI! It is a much loftier (and softer) yarn!

You can see the effect of elasticity when comparing the three Shetland skeins on the left. After plying, all were wound off the bobbin onto the same niddy-noddy, but after washing, you can see the difference in elasticity.

The moral of this story can be summed up in one word, "Sample!" What is interesting is that there is so much variation within the Shetland breed, not only in color, but in fiber characteristics. While this makes it more interesting for a handspinner, it also makes it more challenging. So I'm not sure how all these will knit up into one project. Perhaps they won't. Figuring all that out will probably be a challenge in itself.

© 2007 Leigh's Fiber Journal

Shetland Update - Korny

By Leigh

Before I get too involved with my new loom posts, I thought I'd better pop a Shetland update in here.
Once all my samples were washed I started to spin. For no particular reason, I chose the fawn to spin first.

This single coated fleece came from a three year old fawn ewe named Korny. It is the coarsest of the samples that Cathy sent me, but even so it was lovely to spin.

Korny's crimp wasn't exceptionally well defined, but where it could be counted, it averaged about 4 to 6 per inch. Fiber length ranged from 3 to 5 inches.

The sample displayed a lovely range of colors; from cream to light brown to an almost pewter color. And this leads to a question for all you Shetland shepherds. How is an individuals official color determined? There seem to be so many variations that I think it would be a difficult task to decide.

I decided that I would drum card it to blend it. I put it all through my Strauch Petite four times, which blended it to my satisfaction.

Deciding what size yarn to spin took a little research and contemplation. I knew that I wasn't up to trying my hand at spinning for and knitting a Shetland ring shawl, so I pulled out Alice Starmore's The Celtic Collection to see what size yarn she used for her Fair Isle type designs.

Now, this leads to a short aside where I air out a pet peeve of mine regarding knitting books which only designate a particular brand of yarn rather than a standard size of yarn. This information is of no use to handspinners, not to mention that the book becomes obsolete as soon as the yarn is no longer available. However, one day it occurred to me that I could approximate what size yarn I needed from the gauge listed with the pattern. I just need to spin a yarn to match that. In this case, most of the patterns I'm interested in in this book are about 30 to 33 stitches and 32 to 35 rows per four inches on US 2 - 3 knitting needles. A quick look at the nearest yarn catalog (Knit Picks in this case) informs me that this is a fingering weight yarn, which according to this chart, measures about 16 WPI. So how do I figure out what size to spin my singles? I reach for this book......

Mabel Ross is absolutely one of my favorites and I love her books and video. The handy little chart on page 32 tells me that to create a 2 ply yarn of 16 wraps per inch, my singles need to be 27 WPI. I find however, that this is only a ball park estimate and that I still need to sample. Crimp, loft, and elasticity all play a part in the final yarn size, so experimenting is important. In my case, I settled on 28 WPI for a finished 2 ply size of 17 WPI.

I started out with 2.4 ounces of raw fleece, and after washing out the lanolin and dirt, and picking out anything undesirable (a few short bits and VM), I ended up with 1.3 ounces of lovely yarn. I have almost 73 yards and I really like the color.

For more photos of this lovely fleece and to see how Cathy's been spinning it, click here!

© 15 June 2007 at http://leighsfiberjournal.blogspot.com

Related Posts:
Measuring Wraps Per Inch (WPI)