tencel

http://www.sanguinegryphon.com/

2oz tencel (lyocell) in a long, narrow roving, incredibly shiny. Tencel is made from processed wood pulp and, while it's too slick to spin by itself, it is often blended with other fibers, especially wool, to add shine. Try it in a 50/50 blend with merino for a delightful effect.

Note: tencel fibers tend to stick together and are difficult to blend on a coarse toothed carder, but easy enough on finer cloth models.

spinning tricks from Sanguine Gryphon

http://sanguinegryphon.blogspot.com/2007/02/spinning-tricks.html

Plying, from Sarah:
Sarah uses the cap from a spice bottle to keep her ply balanced. She starts plying by threading the end of one strand of yarn through one of the holes in the cap, so that each singles gets its own hole. Then she plies normally, and the cap keeps the tension on the strands even so that no little boucle sections form.

merino roving

http://www.spinningbunny.com/fibers/merino.html

beautiful merino/tencel sock yarn

http://www.spinningbunny.com/yarns/yarns.html

which direction to ply?

askthebellwether says:

People are usually taught (and books usually say) to spin singles Z (clockwise) and ply S (counter-clockwise).

However, you can and might want to consider the end-use for your yarn and the technique you’re going to use to get there … crochet prefers the final twist direction to be Z, since it adds Z twist to a yarn (so if you were to take a final S twist yarn and crochet it, you’d be taking twist out … and if it were singles, this could be a mess if the yarn then drafted apart again …). Knitting depends: British/throw-style knitting adds Z twist and German/Continental/pick-style knitting adds S twist.

what to do with leftover yarn?

carolspinner says:

I take the leftover on my bobbin and wind it into a tiny center-pull ball. Then I ply it from both ends and make a swatch. That way, I know how the finished yarn will knit up.

Bloody brillant.

spinning resources

Great video for parking and drafting

How do I make sure my singles aren't underspun?

DFW FiberFest 2008: spinning stuff

Badcat's spindle & bamboo

http://fiberlady.com/
http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5056259

Badcat's wool

http://www.ravelry.com/people/pisceanknits
http://www.pisceanknits.com/Home/Homex.html

Lyl's spindle
Spindles on etsy

DFW FiberFest 2008 blog

http://www.dfwfiberfest.blogspot.com/

DFW FiberFest 2008 -- The Accidental Knitter

I got to meet The Accidental Knitter this weekend and bought 3 skeins from her!
On Friday I snagged a one of a kind brilliant, vivid, screaming green. I came back to her booth on Saturday and chose a fuschia/yellow skein and a gorgeous worsted weight shadow yarn in magentas and yellows.

Thank heaven for merino -- wool I can actually play with!

DFW Fiberfest 2008 -- JoJoLand!

JoJoLand's booth stopped me dead in my tracks. Their patterns are wildly inventive, the yarn was beautiful, and Lijuan Jing was a pleasure to deal with.

The Traveling Leaf Shawl completely stunned me -- I wanted to run off with the sample until I could knit my own. I bought that pattern, and I bought patterns and Melody yarn for the Summer in Full Bloom scarf (note: the sample was knit was a 2 stitch cable, not 3) and (I think) the Ripple shawl.

knitzi handmade wooden DPN holder

http://www.knitzi.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=90