3 Ply - Scandinavian Mountain Yarn and similar items

This yarn sold in 150 yard balls. Price calculated by number of plies times yards plus material per ounce times total oz. per ball. Custom quantities negotiable: contact me and ask for specifics, and I can be sure to send you the precise amount you require. Or Check the Entry For Scandinavian Mountain Yarn By The Yard. Scandinavian Mountain Wool is one of the oldest sheep breeds in the world, descended from the primitive breeds of Norway and Sweden. The Scandinavian Mountain sheep evolved from the wild short-tailed sheep. They are small sheep with dual coats that are accustomed to grazing in sparse lands along the coasts of Northern Europe. This was spun using the Scotch tension method, on an Ashford Traveler wheel (Model 2), and in semi-worsted technique. It was spun from a 'Bump" of wool, which is a very large amount indeed. It is only semi-worsted, because true worsted is defined by things to do with how the fiber is prepared before it gets to me. It's soft to the touch, a buttery yellow-white with occasional darker fibers in the mix, and feels like it should knit to be something warm. It's been soaked in hot water, and stretched while hanging dry, so it will hopefully not shrink any further when you wash it once you've knit with it. It's not bulky, but I wouldn't call it fine enough for socks either. I begin by pulling the roving from the bag - that's a fancy term for a specific preparation of spinnable wool - and set up at my Ashford Traveler wheel. After a few hours, there?s quite a bit of single spun up nicely. Theoretically, this 'single yarn' could be knit or woven with 'as is'. But my work doesn't stop there - I then have to wind it off onto another bobbin and get ready for the next step. Plying. Plying is the process of finishing the yarn so that it will be hard to unravel, and so that it will not twist anything knit or woven out of it into spiral shapes. The issue of knitting or weaving with a ?single? is that it will, inevitably, warp and twist into spirals. Now, sometimes, that?s what the client wants. But when it isn?t- I ply. To ply this I set up the three filled bobbins on the Lazy Kate next to my feet, and feed the ends into the wheel once more, just like I do when I sit to spin. But now the wheel is turning the opposite way, so the energy built up in the fibers will hook the three singles together. The step between spinning and plying; the wind-off, is critical. Yarn plied in reverse- which is to say, from the end I stopped at- will misbehave more while plying, and as it's worked later. It may also have thick or thin spots. Wind-off is the process of transferring all that mass of yarn onto another bobbin, so that the end I began spinning it from will be the end on the outside, the one I feed into the wheel to begin the ply. In the process of winding off, over energized spots relax and slack spots take up the extra- so the yarn is smoother all around. Once its plied, I transfer it into a skein, tie up that skein, and soak it in boiling water for ten minutes to set the twist in place. I then hang it somewhere with a weight at the bottom, and let it dry. A few days later, I wind it into a ball while measuring the yards, and consider it ready for sale or use. With my yarn, you get something that's had direct human oversight and care every step of the way. That's my quality assurance.