Spinning for lace part 2

A little while ago I purchased a downloadable dvd from an Interweave sale about spinning fine merino for lace knitting.  The dvd takes you through all aspects from preparation to finished yarn and everything in between.  The previous post has a sample of the dvd for those interested. 

So when I received a beautiful fine merino fleece from Wendy Beer through the facebook group I set to watching the first segment of the dvd again and separated locks to be washed.  Surprisingly you scrub the wet lock onto a bar of velvet soap!  I believed it would surely felt and mat up but it didn't.  Once they were all dried they puffed up beautifully.  To prove this the last two photos were taken 3 hours apart with the drying rack a metre from the heating vent and no I didn't shift them closer together lol.

After they had sat around for a few days I re-watched the 2nd section and began to spin some singles.  So very easy to do and with little to no tension on the wheel.  That allows more control over the fibre to be able to spin it very fine indeed.  I plan to spin up a similar amount and do a small sample to make sure I am on the right track before diving in too deep.  Apparently you can have a perfect looking plied yarn but can come out as a disaster when washed to set the twist if the fine crimp has somehow been trapped within the twist of the singles.  Complicated lol so I will trial and error a bit I think.  Will be interesting to see how my sewing thread reacts.

So this is only a single and will hopefully be plied to another by Saturday to see how we go.  It is best to leave the spun singles sitting on the bobbins for at least overnight before plying.  No time for spinning today but will do it tomorrow morning after tea goes in the slow cooker lol.  Friday is going to be a me day!  Fingers crossed.