Twisp of Fate

I finished the “Handspun Wrap” project last week, and have taken that set-up off the loom.  I’ll be moving on to rug weaving when we get back from our trip to Oregon.

Below is the 7th one, spun from a roving from Taylored Fibers in Quilcene again – a wool and alpaca blend that was white, brown and black.  I knew I didn’t have enough of it so I once again had to spin up some more yarn!  Last year I combined a fine, very crimpy black wool fleece (that I had gotten from Island Fibers on Lopez Island at a spinning camp on Orcas several years back) with some beautiful cinnamon colored alpaca fleece I bought at the ANWG conference in Bellingham last June.  The black wool was from a sheep named “Burt” who I think was a bit of a mongrel.  The alpaca’s name was Potsdam – I just love knowing the names of the animals whose fleece I am spinning.

I sent them off to Morro Fleece Works, a custom carding business that I have been using on occasion.  I knew they would do a good job with these finer fibers, and it came back as a lovely roving, about 30% alpaca and 70% fine wool.  Overall it is a dark cinnamon bark color and I have a lot of it – spun up some for this shawl, and have plenty more for a sweater and maybe something else as well.

Suede warp with tweed and cinnamon alpaca/wool

For the 8th and supposedly final one I used some yarn I spun years ago – 30% qiviut (musk ox down), the rest unspecified wool – a light warm gray color, and very soft and springy.  It was not as heavy/thick as the other yarns I have been using for these shawls, so once again I wasn’t sure I had enough, and I thought it would be nice to have a slightly contrasting border.  So I spun up some baby camel & silk roving to use for that.  I am pretty happy with this shawl, which I am hoping to keep, except the camel/silk yarn had a lot less elasticity than the qiviut yarn, so the borders are somewhat wider than the body of the shawl.

Black warp with 30% qiviut and baby camel/silk yarns

Then just as I was getting ready to take the last warp off the loom, I realized this was the perfect time to do something with a warp I have had for a couple of years.  Our guild does a fiber exchange each April, by drawing numbers and opening “mystery packages” (you can also take something away from someone else).  One year I got a prepared hand-spun wool warp in my package from one of our members who spins most of the yarn she uses for blankets.  I mean it was all wound, with a cross and everything!  It had slightly fewer ends than the warps I have been using, but I only had to take off 8 on each side and the pattern was still balanced.  So I tied it on in front and pulled it back onto the sectional beam through the reed and heddles.  Then I pulled out some handpaint mohair boucle from New Zealand that I used to get from Fiber Trends, to use for the weft.

And here is the result!  Shawl/wrap #9 and now I am truly done with these.

Lucy’s hand-spun warp with handpaint mohair boucle