Rehab for early attempts at spinning

 It occurred to me today that I have quite a bit of leftover handspun and hand dyed from yarns which went into tapestries and other weaving. The leftovers were early learning and I respun some of it, drafting with a bit more skill. It was cheering to see that I have improved.

And to realize I know more about roving now. I started out with a fleece I processed from straight off a friend's sheep (dirt, grass, hayseeds) to yarn, washing, carding, combing, drafting, dyeing, spinning. That worked out pretty well, and I think I've used all that yarn.

However my next venture was a rope of Spanish merino, which I was told was a good beginner's roving to spin from.

 It was discouraging to find I now had trouble drafting and spinning evenly, slippery, resistant.

 I ended up using most of it as roving, woven as is into mixed media wallhangings. Later I found that it's better for a spinner with more experience, which was not me. If I'd known about dizzing, that would probably have helped.

Then I got a mixed lot of dyed roving ends, from Goats Magosh as a low budget experiment,and found some of them practically drafted and spun themselves. So it wasn't me after all. So I cheered up again.

Anyway I'm going to incorporate quite a bit of this yarn, 

some I'll respin a bit to even out the twist, and ply together. I'm glad to rescue this yarn. It's like being a teacher looking at student work and knowing how to fix it and why it didn't work so well before.

While I was at it, I did a bit of spit splicing to join small amounts up for eventual plying. Knitters know this way of bonding two wool yarn ends together. But if you're not a knitter, you might like to know this. It could work on wool crewel yarn, too. Has to be wool. 

You separate out the fiber ends of the yarn

Then spread them together, overlapping them and keeping the fibers in line

Then damp them. Some people use a drop of water on their fingers, some use a bit of saliva, your choice.

Then roll firmly back and forward until the fibers bond permanently. Takes a minute or two. It's the combination of damp and friction that does this. It's similar to felting in a way, but only about an inch of the yarn is affected. Once you can't pull the joint apart you know it's bonded.

Jeans are the best surface for this, but today I was wearing fleece, and it worked anyway.

Very useful meander down Spinning Lane.