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5yrs later… the spinning is done

Over the Christmas holiday, I pulled out my much-neglected cream colored Angora. This is fluff I started spinning back in October 2018. I can’t remember the last time I touched it, though I have evidence that I was working on it in 2019.

I was surprised that after not touching a supported spindle for quite some time, working with the short slippery Angora in a long draw came more easily and with less frustration than I remembered. I think some of the very thin long draw I’ve done over the past couple years since starting to spin for Andean back-strap weaving* must have helped.

In any case, I completed spinning up the cream fibers last week, and now I’ve wound the singles only an old toilet paper roll. I’m using a lazy Kate to hold the roll plus my bobbin of silk thread for plying the angora with the silk thread. This should create a strong yarn while allowing for some fuzz of the angora to give a bit of halo. I have the one little skein I’d previously completed, and have started plying the rest of it.

Clockwise from lower left: a pale wood supported spindle with threadlike cream yarn, a toilet paper roll with more of the same yarn, a small skein of plied white yarn, clouds of fawn angora, the matching wood support bowl.

One handy part about plying to existing thread – it’s easy to count off each 100yds as that’s the amount of thread on each bobbin. My first tiny little skein is in fact 100yds of Angora and silk.

On a whim, I finally ordered the black alpaca and silk rainbow which I’ve been eyeing on Upstream Alpacas for almost as long as I’ve been working on this angora.

A batt of black alpaca with a layer of silk in a rainbow from purple through to pick is rolled up and tied together with a black ribbon.

*no, I haven’t finished this spinning yet either.