Since I love commercial Icelandic yarns I thought I’d give spinning that breed’s fleece a try. I got a pound of natural gray roving and 8 oz of natural white roving. First I used the gray and made it into a 2-ply. I was worried that my ability to spin singles was not up to speed, so I chose to do a plied yarn. Plus, I had never seen a plied Icelandic yarn.
It turned out very thick at 7 wpi. (wpi= wraps per inch. It is how many strands can wrap around 1 inch of a ruler.) I did a swatch with size 8 needles and got 14 stitches per 4 inches.
I’m not sure where the whole pound went because in the end I had 210 grams of finished yarn. (I think I blended some of it in another project that I didn’t make notes on.)
For the white Icelandic yarn I blended it with some Cheviot roving. I used 57% Icelandic and 43% Cheviot. I blended the roving by running it through my drum carder then I spun it into a single ply yarn. Yes, that’s right, I was brave and did a single ply yarn.
A note for all the non-spinners: The reason a single strand of yarn is difficult to make look good is because the inconsistencies will stand out. When you ply a yarn with 2, 3, or more strands, the inconsistencies get hidden and sort of even out. In a way, they are averaged out thus the yarn will look more uniform with more plies.
I ended up with 110 grams of finished yarn. The yarn is 13 wpi. I knitted a swatch with size 3 needles and got 20 sts per 4 inches in stockinette.
There are a lot of variables regarding the processing and spinning of these two yarns but my option is that the single ply yarn looks better than the 2-ply. I’ll eventually get around to knitting with them but my next big project is with commercially produced Alafosslopi. I can’t say I enjoyed spinning these Icelandic yarns enough to make a whole sweater’s worth.
Fleece Love and Happiness 