I love my Rose, I love her big bobbins, which fit almost twice as much as an Ashford bobbin. I love that I can spin laceweight at a ratio of 31:1 if I want to. But I have discovered a flaw…
When you can only fit 50g or so on a bobbin, the natural course of action is to spin two bobbins of 25g and then ply them together, rinse, repeat. When your bobbins fit 100g it’s easy to think: ‘Right then, I’ll just do it in two halves then - easy!’ Have you any idea how long it takes to spin 50g of lace onto a bobbin? And not be allowed to do anything else in between? (I knew I’d never go back to it if I started something else!).
I’ll tell you - about a week for each. Luckily, this fibre is absolute heaven to spin, so I didn’t get grumpy, just occasionally a little bored. But then I looked at the yarn and went all smiley again.
Specs
Fibre: Oceanwind Knits Merino in ‘Elderberry’ from Socktopus.
Ratio: 21.9
Draft: Long draw from the fold
Wpi: sorry, never checked
Yards: about 500yds/4oz, more if you stretch it more. Well, it’s an inexact science. But there were 324 blinking strands of yarn on my niddy noddy.
Destiny: Most probably a Flower Basket shawl
And I’d do it again like a shot :-D Although maybe half at a time…
Entries (RSS)
January 26th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Love that yarn! I’m thinking of buying a Rose too - such inspiration!
January 26th, 2009 at 10:13 pm
That looks lovely, can’t wait to see it knit up. Do you have more bobbins now so that you can spin other things?
January 27th, 2009 at 1:42 am
That is gorgeous! It will make a beautiful shawl…
January 27th, 2009 at 3:25 am
Gorgeous color! Envious at having that much in one project too. ;^)
January 27th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Dammit! I just accidently deleted a legitimate comment! If it was you, I’m very sorry - it was in no way personal, just a slip of the mouse :-)
January 27th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
Heavenly! What a fabulous colorway…
January 27th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
The obvious solution is to buy more bobbins! And the large plying bobbin - you’ve got to have that! I love my Rose.
January 27th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
‘Long draw from the fold’ - yet another technique to master! Lovely stuff.
January 30th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
That is lovely, what a beautiful color. I have two ashfords one is the Travelar and I have the extra large bobbins for it they are really nice.
February 3rd, 2009 at 8:01 am
I have a jumbo flyer with matching bobbin, they easily fit 100g on each…….that takes time… But when you consider that you can have about 150g in one contious lenght, it’s worth it.
February 4th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
very nice to see spun up (beautiful job, too). :) Alice convinced me last fall to dye some rovings for her shop in my ’standard’ colourways (vs. non-repeatable one-of-a-kinds) and i’m thrilled to see how they are spinning up.