Lest you think I’ve completely gone over to the dark side. There has been activities other than weaving around here.
Tactile Fiber Arts April Club
Fiber: 50/50 Angora/Merino
Weight: 2 oz
Singles: 60-68 wpi
2-Ply: 36 wpi, pre-fulled; 28 wpi, fulled
Yardage: 438 yards, pre-fulled; 426 yards, fulled.
Singles spun on Reeves Frame Wheel. Plied on Schacht Matchless.
I firmly plied this yarn so that the bunny fur will stay put instead of shedding on my clothes, once knitted. Then I fulled it by shocking the yarn in alternate hot/cold soapy baths, and generally bashed the yarn around with a water bottle in the hot soapy bath. After pressing out the water in a towel, I thwacked it several times while rotating the skein to ensure that the entire skein has received “the treatment.”
“Thwacking.” Someone asked what this is in one of the Ravelry discussion groups. You take the wet skein on one hand and swing it from the back of your head against a sharp edge (the edge of a table or your kitchen counter). This does a couple of things.
- It loosens up any felting of strands that you may have done in the hot/cold, bashing around process.
- It fluffs up the short fibers and helps it bloom. The yarn now has a lovely halo, which it didn’t have when it first came off of the spinning wheel.
- It helps even out your twist by shifting it a bit.
You can’t really tell by the picture above, but the halo is really there. This sample card on the right shows the halo a bit better. The sample on the right (blue/green) was brushed once. The sample on the left (lavender/blue) was brushed 6 times. I forgot to keep back a sample before the wet finishing to show off how different it really is.