Meanderings of a Mermaid

 The mohair locks are being flicked open at the cut end. I try to have them arranged close to my Lendrum wheel, with the flicked end to the left.  On the floor between the treadles I have a cone of commercially spun mohair yarn. This is the core for the new yarn I am making. It is working out very well, because it is a grippy yarn. I hold the flared base of the lock against the spinning core and it attaches quickly. Soon the tip of the lock flips itself away from me, toward the orifice, which is good. I stop the spinning, or slow down significantly, and grab the next lock and repeat. Each one overlaps a little bit with the previous one. They are attached snuggly.  This large ball is about 6 yards of completed tail spun yarn. This is a very labour intensive yarn to make. If I ever plan to sell anything made from this yarn, I guarantee it will not be cheap.  On the bobbin, the yarn appears very unruly. But it is not very difficult to deal with. I do hav...

 Learning new stuff is just the best thing! I am keeping my mind and my fingers nimble. So it was about time I tried to make a boucle yarn on my spinning wheels. The starting point I used are mohair locks after they have been dyed. You can see the locks of hair are very shiny and are packed together quite well. With a flicker, which is just like a dog brush, I brushed each lock to open it up. You can see how things look a little more fluffy. This gives the opportunity to remove any last bits of straw and decide what colour to spin next. On my Lendrum wheel I spun a medium twist single. With the grey yarn shown in following photos, I tried for a loose twist. As of today I have spun three bobbins full of a slick mohair single (this gold-pink-brown; a natural grey shown below; and a gold-orange-green).  The boucle burn happens in the second step, which is the first plying step (ply S twist). A thin but strong core thread is plied along with this mohair single. I am f...