Long tail spinning

A little update on my Teeswater wool. I got to spin about 2 1/2 oz of this wonderful fiber. The wool was really clean, so it was a matter of getting rid of the lanolin. It didn’t take too much effort to get it ready to spin. Plus the excitement of trying the long tail technique with this wonderful fiber for the first time made me much more speedier on the process. Luckily, I got plenty of sun to get the fiber dry in a couple of days and a good salad spinner to get rid of excess of water.

I washed the curls by wrapping them in some tulle in two batches. I didn’t want the fiber to felt, and this is a good way of keeping the locks in one place with minimal handling.

The clean wool has a beautiful pearlescent white.

Trying to spin long tail for fist time was a lot of fun.

Besides the wonderful luster that this wool has, it is really soft.

The best way to do this technique is first, brush the end of the curl. Make sure you don’t brush the tips.  It should be brushed at the end where the wool has been cut from the sheep.

And it should look something like this after brushing it:

This is the end that should be used to spin on to the core yarn.

To secure the lock, I try the ends to overlap a little bit  because I don’t want my yarn to come apart. It takes a while to spin a couple of yards, but the results are stunning.

The bobbin of my Mach 1 already full with only a couple yards.  It will make a great scarf.

“Laugh as much as you breathe and love as long as you live.”