Making "Stormy Ocean" Yarn:

from undyed fiber
to knitted scarf

Spinning an Alpaca/Merino Yarn:

When I saw the knitting pattern for the "Morning Surf" scarf in SpinOff magazine this year, I fell in love with it and knew I had to try it. So I took some of my precious alpaca/merino roving, dyed it in colors that made me think of the the Pacific Ocean at Grayland on a stormy day, spun it into a singles yarn that I then Navajo 3-plied, and finally started knitting the scarf.

The whole process is shown in pictures below, from the undyed roving, through the dyeing process and spinning process, and on into knitting my multicolored "Morning Surf" scarf.

I hope you find it interesting.

I started by measuring out 4 ounces of undyed roving. This roving is 80% alpaca and 20% merino sheep's wool. I bought a pound of the roving from Donna Hilton at the Weavery at Indian Meridian near Guthrie, Oklahoma in August (2008). The alpaca fiber in this blend is from one of Donna's own alpacas. (I bought some gorgeous gorgeous natural fawn colored alpaca fiber from her, too, but that's another story!)

This shows the fiber pre-soaking in a "brine" of white vinegar, salt, and water to prepare it for dyeing.

After soaking at least 20 minutes, I removed the fiber, letting it drain for a minute so it was wet, but not dripping, then arranged it on plastic wrap on my counter (which had first been covered with black trash bags to protect the surface).

I then started dripping random "splotches" of my fiber reactive dyes on the fiber, leaving lots of white space in between the color spots. I used two different blues, a yellow, and just a bit of fuschia to create my colors.

This is a close up of a section of the fiber after the dye has been added. The color has been added, but is not set yet. I still have to wear gloves and be careful of getting dye on anything besides the alpaca/wool fiber.

In this picture I am using one hand to pull the clear plastic wrap up over and around the fiber, then using the other hand to help spread and blend the dye by tightly rolling the plastic-wrapped portion into a "cinnamon roll" shape.

Here is a closer picture of the "cinnamon rolling" process -- almost done!

Now the roll is complete, and is on a microwave-safe plate, ready to heat so that the dye will become permanent.

The rolled fiber has been heated in the microwave 3 times, for approximately 1-1/2 minute each time, with a cooling period of 1 minute in-between heating sessions. The premise is to heat it long enough for the plastic wrap to "puff up," then turn off the microwave, wait one minute, then repeat the "puff up" process 2 more times.

This picture was taken several hours after the fiber was microwaved, so that it is now totally cooled to room temperature, and the dye has had a good opportunity to set permanently. The roll is still wrapped in plastic, but you can see how much the dye has filled into the "white space" and saturated the fiber.

Here the dyed fiber has been unrolled, but is still in the plastic. The next step will be to peel away the plastic wrap to leave the dyed fiber in the sink.

The unwrapped fiber has now been allowed to soak briefly (a minute or two) in 4 different changes of room-temperature water, each time gently draining and refilling the sink without letting the water from the faucet hit the fiber. Because the 4th rinse water was mostly clear, I then filled the sink again, adding a few drops of liquid dishwashing detergent (Palmolive original, in this case), and let the fiber soak another minute before draining and rinsing again. The above photo was taken at that point.

I did one final rinse. This time I added 1/4 cup white vinegar to the water and allowed the fiber to soak for 5 minutes.

After that vinegar-water soak, I let the fiber drain in a colander for a few minutes, then put it in a mesh lingerie bag. I took this bag to my washing machine, turned the water faucets to the machine to OFF, put the bag in the tub, and turned the dial to the last spin cycle and turned the machine on. This centrifugal action removes most of the excess water from the fiber and speeds up the drying process immensely.

This is the "centrifuged" fiber after I removed it from the lingerie bag as soon as the washer had finished. It is barely damp dry!

Here I have straightened the damp-dry fiber so that I can hang it over a rod to complete the drying process. It will be dry and ready for the next step in about 24 hours.

In this picture, I have begun to "tease" the dried fiber. I like to tease out the fiber from side-to-side after it dries, both to ensure that it is completely dry and to make it easier to divide to make narrower rovings for spinning into yarn.

This is the fiber after it has all been teased side to side. I then rolled it up and put my hand beside it to show the volume. It's hard to believe it's the same amount of wool that was in the pre-soaking bowl at the start of this process!

Now I have split the teased fiber into vertical strips. For this project, I split it into 6 strips, then rolled the strips lightly to keep them from tangling until time for the next step.

This step, pulling and drawing ("pre-drafting") the fiber into a narrower, finer roving, is one that I find incredibly helpful in spinning my yarn. It isn't, I guess, technically necessary; but for me it's absolutely worth the time to do this preparation so that I have a fine, reasonably-even roving, ready to spin. Well-prepared fiber makes the actual spinning process much easier and faster.

A ball of roving, ready for the spindle or, in this case, my Ashford Traditional spinning wheel. I could spin it as is, and would end up with decent-sized singles that could be used for a scarf. But I have decided that I want to make a much thinner singles yarn so that I can Navajo ply it, creating a 3-ply yarn for the scarf. Plying (twisting strands together in the opposite direction to the spinning direction) will soften the yarn somewhat by loosening the original twist, and for this winter scarf I prefer that softness.

Here is the bobbin of my Ashford Traditional, full of my singles yarn. I did draft the roving even finer as I spun it, trying to keep the thickness of the singles yarn at between 20 and 25 fibers. (Of course, there were some places a bit thinner and some a bit thicker, but to me, that's part of the beauty of hand-spun yarn!)

This bobbin is being filled with my Navajo-plied singles yarn. Navajo plying involves a method in which only one strand (single) of yarn is used, but it is pulled up in loops (sort of like finger crocheting) and the twist is inserted by the spinning wheel while the hands continue pulling a loop of yarn through the last loop of yarn, time after time, until all the yarn has been looped and twisted.

In effect, I am creating a 3-ply yarn by doing this, yet still keeping the color sequence the same as in the singles yarn. (Plying 3 separate strands together would result in much more of a "candy-striped effect," which I did not want in this finished yarn.)

Navajo plying is one process that is MUCH easier to learn by watching/demonstrating/doing rather than trying to understand a verbal or written description!

Here is some of the finished Navajo plied yarn.

...And here is that same finished Navajo plied yarn, tamed by twisting it into a skein to keep it neat and untangled while stored. When I am ready to knit, I wind the skein into a ball on a ball-winder so it's easier to use.

Part of the front side of my scarf in progress.

This is just a small detail, but I hope you can get an idea of the pattern design from it. This scarf pattern, "Morning Surf," was created by Jackie Erickson-Schweitzer and the directions for knitting it can be found at her website, Heartstrings Fiber Arts. It's a very flexible pattern because it can be adjusted to the size of your yarn and to the width you desire--as long as the total number of stitches ends in 6. (I am using size 6 needles, and cast on 36 stitches for my "Stormy Ocean" scarf.)

Note: Since the scarf is "in progress." it has not been blocked yet--so it looks rather uneven and distorted. I will try to get a photo of the blocked scarf up as soon as possible, because blocking will make a huge difference!

This is a portion of the back side of the same scarf. Notice the difference in the texture of the rows between the openwork cells. I like this side just as much as I like the "right" side!

...and hopefully I'll have it finished before the snow falls this winter!

Diane