Time consuming craft

Now I don't do crafts just as something to do...hopefully one day it'll be a viable hobby business.. At the moment I am just exploring a lot of different things and a few people have come a long for the fibre ride.

Here are a few things I am working on at this time...

A while ago I spun up some Blue Faced Leicester that I had dyed in a progression of blues and blended with a progression of blues in silk.

I had planed on knitting a wrap or something with it but when my arm cracked the sads (RSI from knitting, yes I was awfully busy with my hands).  It got set aside for a while..Then I got an Ashford Knitters Loom and decided to make a wrap out of it.  This is my third loom project.

I am working on it about 2 hrs a day.  Weaving something like this doesn't take long but if it gets tiresome I move onto the spinning............

I bought some Alpaca from the lovely Julie from Petlyns Wool Crafts  It is in a nice grey that she is trying to hybridize to add more crimp to the fibre to give it memory similar to wool... It would be great from a spinner/knitter point as the garments we make won't be so inclined to drop half a metre every time the air gets moist and humid.

That being said, Alpacas are one of the filthiest creatures whose fibre I have ever had the pleasure to process.  The little buggers love to dust bath so their fibre is just jam packed with dirt, twigs, grass, seeds, poop, bugs, you name it, you will find it in alpaca fibre.  Now granted, Julie's fibre was some of the cleanest alpaca I have ever had, but it is still filthy.

I spent  hours picking the crap out of it and after spinning 25g I washed the lot too and repicked it.  Then I carded it into batts, picking, picking, picking...........

I have been spinning this for about a month now I think.  It is insisting on being spun quite finely so it is taking ages...I have the end in sight now though as I am down to the last two batts.  I did this nifty thing with a button called diz'ing.  Simply put it's pulling the batt through a little hole (ie button hole) to make a fine rope of roving called pencil roving.  Of course they do have a machine that does this too but I haven't got one.

it looks like this....

I probably should have done it with all the batts but it is very time consuming to do (like the whole darn craft) and I had other more pressing time hungry things to do.

I had 700g originally, I have spun 25g already but I have only filled two bobbins.  Just that ball up there and  a smaller one left to spin...and ply..

So anyway, doing that kind of spinning can be very very mind numbing so I often grab something that will enjoy being spun to a more 8ply/10ply kind of thickness.  I call them my quick spins, they are solely to break the tedium of other projects.   I have had a kg of black shetland sitting for some time.  Before my injury I had started carding it with some mulberry silk I had coloured and couldn't find a task for.  I probably shouldn't have picked this as my quick spin given that it's a kg of fibre...but Shetland is really nice to spin.

This was one pass through the carder.  I only had about 8 more lots to blend so since my arm is feeling ok I thought I would finish them off.  I decided to stick with the chunky silk look as it is above.

My Majacraft wheels are busy with the alpaca so I pulled out my Ashford traveller, fondly called Bianca to do the job.  She's a lovely wheel to spin on and perfect for this task.

You can barely see the silk in the single.  I have a couple of 100g that has no silk and I am still undecided whether to ply it with the silk blend or keep it separate.

I will post more pics as the projects are finished.