Spinning the Massam Roving

I have been busily handcarding my Rambouillet fleece, but couldn't resist getting started on one of my fiber goodies. The hardest part was trying to decide which one to spin first. I finally chose the Massam. It is a lovely pewter color, plus I am thinking of painting some of the white rovings, so I figured this was a good place to start.

It is a British breed, also known as Marsham. It was developed by crossing Teeswater or Wensleydale rams with Swalebreed ewes, producing sheep with heavy longwool fleeces.

The roving showed lovely subtle variations of medium gray fibers, beautifully prepared.

Fiber length - about 8 inches
Luster - low
Total weight - 100 grams
Scant VM, neps, and kemp
Spinning ratio - 8.5 to 1
Spun worsted
Singles - 26 WPI
2-ply - 15 WPI
Yardage - > 177 yards

It was not harsh to the hand while spinning, though I would not consider wearing it next to the skin. It is traditionally used to make outerwear garments, upholstery, rugs, and carpets. My sample was nice enough to consider something knitted. For this reason I used a lower twist angle to enhance the softness as much as possible to make it more suitable for a knitted yarn.

I was pleased that my Kromski bobbins nicely held the entire 100 grams.


I don't have a project in mind for this yet. I think I'll wait until I get the other samples spun.

© 2007 Leigh's Fiber Journal

Rare Breed Sweater - The Shetland Row

Is there such a thing as a knitting klutz club? If there is, then I'm a member. Or perhaps I have the distinction of being the founder. I've been busily knitting away on my Rare Breed Sweater, highly motivated to get it done. I'm on the right front now and have finally finished the first row, the Shetland sheep row. Not without problems however. First I discovered that I started the sheep legs on the wrong count, and then discovered I'd dropped a stitch about 20 rows back which threw the whole thing off. Talk about feeling like I'm spinning my wheels and getting nowhere!

Anyway, here it is, unblocked and rather rumply; photo taken while my helper was catnapping.


My friend Anne in Canada tells me there 11 main colors of Shetland sheep, with 32 variations. These all have Gaelic names to distinguish them. However, I had three colors to work with, enough to fill a row; two ewes and a ram (with the horns.)

My knitted ones started as commercial tops which were simply called black, moorit, and grey. The moorit came from Paradise Fibers. The black and grey came from Woodland Woolworks. At the time I ordered them, this was about all the color choice available via commercial retailers. Tina has since give me a link to the North American Shetland Sheep Association. I have this bookmarked as a future resource.

My Shetland tops were lovely to spin and lovely to knit. Perhaps someday in the distant future I can collect and spin all the colors. I would love to knit a Fair Isle vest or sweater with them. However, my project list is long, so don't expect this any time soon. :)

© 2007 Leigh's Fiber Journal

Related Posts:
Winter Knitting Project
Rare Breed Sweater Swatches
TA-DAH! Rare Breed Sweater Done!

Fiber Goody Bag

I didn't realize that I haven't posted since Sunday(!) Now that the Computer Design Workshop is getting ready to enter the official wrapping up stage (making way for an Online Guild Crochet Technique Workshop next month), I've been on a knitting spree, with Shetland sheepies on the needles for the right front of my Rare Breed Sweater.

But! If Christmas comes in January somewhere in the universe, then I'm there! Judy sent me a scrumptious fiber goody package. I am very excited because they are all from breeds I've never worked with before.

Starting at the top and working clockwise: Falkland (white), Black Welsh, Texel (white), Cheviot (light grey), Norwegian (white), and Massam (grey). These are tops which are beautifully prepared and just beg to jump right to the wheel.

Currently on the wheel is nothing, so how will I be able to resist? In preparation for the wheel, is the black Rambouillet, which fortunately survived Rascal's infatuation. It has been washed and is becoming luciously soft rolags.

I love having several projects going on at the same time. I firmly believe in taking frequent breaks to rest my eyes and change my position and posture. What better way to take a break than to switch to the next project! ;)

© 2007 Leigh's Fiber Journal

Huck Towels 3

By Leigh

My huck dishtowels are off the loom, washed, and hemmed. They were woven from cotton 8/2; white warp and blue weft. The drafts were huck variations from Helene Bress's The Weaving Book. The washed fabric is nice and sturdy.


Unfortunately, except for the first two photos in this post, the colors are not true in the rest of the pictures. I found that the flash washed them out, but with dark rainy skies today, the natural light was poor.

In evaluating them, there are two things which I will do differently with the next batch: selvedge treatment and size.

With these towels, I didn't use a floating selvedge warp end. I'm not really sure why, except for some vague sense of wondering "what if." For the warp huck sample it didn't matter as the selvedges were threaded for plain weave. But as you can see for the sample at the left, the selvedges did their own thing. Even so, it made for an interesting bound edge with a scalloped effect. How well they hold up will be a matter for wash and wear to tell.

For the size, I allowed 20 percent for draw-in and shrinkage, aiming for a finished width of 15 inches. The actual width is 14 inches. This dismayed me at first, because no commercial dishtowel in the stores are this narrow. However, when I measured my own dishtowels, they are in fact narrower than 14 inches. Obviously the ones in the stores are not pre-shrunk.

When it came to length, I totally blew it and ended up with anything from 17.5 to 22 inches after shrinking. My current method is to measure each time I advance the warp and mark the spot, simply keeping a tally of inches. How in the world I go so many different lengths is beyond me. I blame it on too many distractions! However, next time I'm going to try Charleen's idea of using a knotted string.

So, my solution was to simply pronounce the shorter ones "placemats"! It is a mix and match bunch of place mats to be sure, but the sizes work.




Huck has been a good structure to weave with other things going on. It's easy to thread and quick to weave. And I like the way it looks too.

© 21 Jan. 2007 at http://leighsfiberjournal.blogspot.com

Related Posts:
Lace Sampler - Huck
Huck Towels 1
Huck Towels 2
Another Warp for Huck
Finishing Up the Huck (For Now)
Huck Dishtowels Finished
Leigh's Fiber Gallery: Dishtowels

Rare Breed Sweater - Left Front Finished

After three major unknit/reknit sessions, I finally finished the left front to my Rare Breed Sweater last night. I frogged and reknit the bottom row of sheep once, and the top 4 inches twice. Once because I counted wrong for the neck decreases, and once because I discovered that my seeding pattern was off by one stitch.

So here it is, with help.........

and with help removed..........

The top row is (from left to right): Leicester Longwool, California Variegated Mutant, and Whiteface Woodland.

The bottom row is a family of Navajo-Churro sheep, showing off a nice variety of their lovely natual colors. The spacing between the adult on the right and the lamb looks better than it did at first. Even though it was the same measurement of 4 stitches as between the other sheep, the smaller lamb created a larger visual space.

And here it is, pinned to the back. It gives an idea of how the sheep motif is fitting together on the two pieces.


I still need to weave in a lot of ends and embroider the details: eyes, facial outlines, and a tail for that one seam-side sheep on the bottom. It is working out better than I'd hoped. I've had to do a lot of thinking and calculating to get the sheep to work out right. For awhile I wasn't too sure that would happen, but it is.

© 2007 Leigh's Fiber Journal

Related Posts:
Winter Knitting Project
Rare Breed Sweater Swatches
TA-DAH! Rare Breed Sweater Done!