Too funny to miss

"For Better or For Worse" by Lynn Johnston, August 27, 2007.

Wool on the charkha

The charkha is of course designed to spin cotton and other very short, slippery fibers. However, people say it will spin anything. Having gotten the hang of spinning cotton thread with mine, I decided to try some wool. Well, actually, I used some sliver that is a blend of equal parts merino, alpaca, and silk noil. That stuff has been a bear to draft evenly when using a regular wheel, so I thought I was probably setting myself too difficult a task to start with. However, I have lots and lots of it, so no harm in trying.

Actually it didn't take long to get it going. Loosening and fluffing the sliver without attenuation, as suggested by Elaine Benfatto, helped a lot. Soon I had it working with a point of contact spinning technique, and making consistent very fine singles, Quite possibly, these two spindles are the finest wool thread I've ever spun. I have wound them off onto weaving bobbins, and will now put them on the lazy kate and ply them on a regular wheel. The result is going to be lace weight, I'm sure.

Of course, instead of experimenting I should be in production mode to spin up a huge pile of wool from my own sheep. I've had little success this year getting other spinners to buy the fleeces, but chances are someone would take finished yarn. Or if not, everyone on my Christmas list gets a scarf and hat this year. ;p

I have quite a stash of other things to try on the charkha now, including some natural green cotton, and a 50-50 blend of wool and cotton. There's also a sack of golden retriever fluff here somewhere...