This week I’ve been playing a bit with making bouclé yarns. I’ve had a bunch of mohair top and mohair locks sitting around with just that plan in mind, but had not yet gotten around to giving it a try.
A couple weekends ago, I finally bought my last “ingredients”: silk threads for core and binder. I already know this is going to be crazy slow on my drop spindle, without trowing in spinning my own core and binders as well.
This week, Ply Magazine chose bouclé for their #51yarns challenge (different yarn challenge each week) and the timing seemed too perfect for me not to take the plunge. I had everything I needed, and now it was Bouclé week.
I’m a control sort of person – nice neat tidy semi-worsted singles are my default (semi because the prep may not always be top). So going for loopy and uneven is a struggle.
I was most taken with the “cloud bouclé“ in the Ply Bouclé Issue, which is more translucent puffs of fiber than little loops. I pulled out my hand cards to make fluffy rolags. I also set up my lazy-kate to hold the bobbins of thread with a bit of tension. While I would still have to try to manipulate with a hand and a half what normally gets two hands at the wheel, at least this helped keep a default angle for the core and then later the binder thread.
My first effort was… not quite there. It’s got a bit of puff, but not really. I was far too gentle in trying to slide up the initial fiber. It’s limp rather than drapey and doesn’t have enough life.
My next effort got me a lot closer to what I want. I got a better sense of how to hold the fibers to let them wrap on the core so the first ply went a bit more quickly.
It looks pretty cool, glows a bit more in the light and definitely has a bit more form to it. It’s not the “clouds” I want yet though.
I think I’m still too attached to a tidy looking single instead of letting it be looser at that stage. There are a few spots more like what I was aiming for.
So, not there yet. But, it’s been a learning journey already and I think I’ll be able to make use of both bits of yarn.