A Spinner's Swatch?

A Spinner's Swatch?

Knowing your Fiber & Your options

Knitters know all about the dreaded swatch. Some swear it is essential and others declare it unnecessary, however everyone knows how to do one.  As a knitter I am not a swatch fan, however as a spinner I find it useful.  Creating is as much science as art, and creating a “swatch” is part of my process.

This creation starts about a decade ago, I was commissioned to spin alpaca fiber for an eastern alpaca rancher from pencil roving.   They sent me 10 pounds of fiber that included the black seen in the video. 

This fiber was a beast to spin, it was slippery, had little crimp and spun so thin that all the loft was removed in the process.  This fiber also had moderate amounts of vegetable matter (VM) that forced me to stop frequently.  In consultation with the rancher we decided this was not the result they wanted and they decided not to have me spin it for their line. 

I also found out this was not a typical alpaca fleece, this was a F1 alpaca cross.  Siri and Huacaya alpaca cross to be exact.  ( See more on that later)   This yearling fleece carried the low crimp silkiness of its suri father but the horizontal bundling of its huacaya mother.   This is why it spun like it did.  Ultimately I was given the fleece and it sat in my stash for a decade.  

This Blog will cover the blending of fibers for spinning, The next will cover spinning and plying.

The black bump is Alpaca, white is Merino and orange is Sari Silk  

 Developing a Blend Formula

I came across the alpaca pencil roving recently and decided to try blending it with some premium merino roving I  had in “deep stash” and then on impulse grabbed a package of recycled sari silk I had from a trip to Paradise Fiber.  I was going to need to card these together to blend, but how much of each would create the best blend for a beautiful blend?  This is where the science comes in.  I was experimenting with small amounts and hand carders and didn’t want to do a large batch.   A scale to weigh out percentages was the answer.  I wanted to maximize the alpaca in the blend so I weighed out 5 oz of alpaca 3 of merino and 2 silk.  (A 10 0z sample is easy to  replicate later).  Using hand carders I blended and then spun this sample on a drop spindle.  It was not what I wanted so I went back to the scale.  After 3 more try the final blend of 4A + 5M + 1S and that is what is shown below.

This bowl of yummy faux batts are the result of hand carding  30 gm total fiber using the formula described.

The next blog will detail the steps that follow; spinning, plying and finishing the yarn with the creative decisions made during the process. 

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