Spinning Romney

As part of my January long wool destash, I have dug out a grey Romney ewe fleece I bought last year and am spinning for weaving warp.

This Romney is probably my favourite long wool. It is shiny, it is crimpy, the softest parts are silvery and sweater soft. The medium parts are mid-grey and jacket soft, and the firmest parts are slate grey and rugged (or maybe rug-ish). Unfortunately I didn't wash it very carefully, so a couple of kilos are felty, musty-smelling and muddy. Peg-loom food, in fact. But the rest is fine, and these are big fleeces, so there is a lot of it.

My first Romney shawl. Also looks good on aliens.

The first thing I made from this fleece when I bought it was a shawl. Then I felt silly because, what idiot would make a shawl out of long wool? Shawls are supposed to be gossamer-thin, and soft as thistle down. This shawl has a certain scrunch to its handle. I ended up having to crochet an edge in softer wool because it was a little too rough against my neck.

Still, I love it. It is warm and easy to throw on first thing in the morning. Moreover, it will take a lot of abuse and still stay cheerful. Including being worn by small boys being cybermen and daleks that are feeling a bit chilly. I wouldn't like to see a wedding ring shawl have to struggle for survival in our household.





So now I'm spinning it again, for weaving this time.

Romney locks, before and after flick-carding.

The the locks are four or five inches long and the lock structure is very well defined. The locks look like huge silver shrimp. I could comb them but readers of my blog have seen the size of my home-made combs, and frankly I don't feel  strong enough. So I've been flicking the locks and then spinning from the nose end. It is easy to grab a lock and flick it. You end up with over a gramme of parallel, long fibres per lock, and hardly any waste.Once I have a gorilla tub full, then I spin.

I've been trying to spin the way Sara Lamb advocates in her book and videos, Spining to Weave. I hold the flicked lock in my right hand, and pull gently back, while letting the twist run over my open left hand and into the drafting triangle. It's not easy, I am a natural gripper and tugger. But she says it causes fewer hand problems, and I'm all for not getting arthritis from excessive fibre-tugging.

Romney warps, on a Romney and Leicester peg-loom rug.

Once I have spun up two bobbins, I ply them together, with quite a lot of twist. The skeins certainly won't be hanging straight, and I shall have to wash them and hang them to dry to calm the twist down. (I tought I could skip the washing step when making weaving yarn, but Sara Lamb advises against it, unless you really enjoy fighting with energised yarn while warping).

The resulting yarn is about double knitting thickness, and so strong that I can't snap it by tugging on it with my hands.

The next weaving project is another peg loom rug, using unspun Romney locks (the felted, musty-smelling ones) as weft. When it's done I'll give it a good wash, which will hopefully full it and remove the mud and  must. I hope.

After that, I'm thinking of spinning some weft, either Romney lambswool or White Faced Woodland or maybe some downs wool I have in a bucket up the loft.  That could be dyed heather colours, which might mix well with the silver grey of the warp. I want to to weave a study, warm shawl with it, and take it camping.

My MWAS (Man With A Shed) wants to take us all camping to the Scottish Highlands this year. Bring it on, I say. I need mountain air and North Sea breezes to give my woollen wear a thorough weather testing!