#chiengora — Public Fediverse posts

#TourDeFleece Rest Day # 2
No spinning, but I did transfer my Tibetan Mastiff / merino blends to skein/hank format for better side-by-side comparison. Making up for my unofficial rest day last Friday.

In these photos, top to bottom:

- 2:1 TM/Dark Chocolate (purple ties) 3-ply
-2:1 TM/Espresso (orange ties) 3-ply large & 2-ply small
- 3:1 TM/Espresso (yellow ties) 3-ply

I'd already done a 1:1 TM/Espresso blend, and found that it really didn't have the fuzzy halo you get from 100% fur yarn: it was just a brown yarn. So, the bottom 2 blends are to see if I can get more of that halo back with a smaller fraction of wool, while still keeping the benefits of wool's "memory". The fur is much harder to come by, so the more wool I can get away with, the longer I can make the fur last.

The 3:1 does indeed look fuzzier than the 2:1, so I'm quite curious now how it'll compare after wash, thwack/snap, and swatch.

The Dark Chocolate is a slightly redder brown merino from a different sheep from the same flock. It's still subtle, but you can see the difference from the Espresso a little more here than on the bobbins. It brings out the redder tones in the fur, whereas the Espresso is a better match for the dark browns in the fur.

#TourDeFleece2026 #HandSpinning #Chiengora

#TourDeFleece Rest Day # 2
No spinning, but I did transfer my Tibetan Mastiff / merino blends to skein/hank format for better side-by-side comparison. Making up for my unofficial rest day last Friday.

In these photos, top to bottom:

- 2:1 TM/Dark Chocolate (purple ties) 3-ply
-2:1 TM/Espresso (orange ties) 3-ply large & 2-ply small
- 3:1 TM/Espresso (yellow ties) 3-ply

I'd already done a 1:1 TM/Espresso blend, and found that it really didn't have the fuzzy halo you get from 100% fur yarn: it was just a brown yarn. So, the bottom 2 blends are to see if I can get more of that halo back with a smaller fraction of wool, while still keeping the benefits of wool's "memory". The fur is much harder to come by, so the more wool I can get away with, the longer I can make the fur last.

The 3:1 does indeed look fuzzier than the 2:1, so I'm quite curious now how it'll compare after wash, thwack/snap, and swatch.

The Dark Chocolate is a slightly redder brown merino from a different sheep from the same flock. It's still subtle, but you can see the difference from the Espresso a little more here than on the bobbins. It brings out the redder tones in the fur, whereas the Espresso is a better match for the dark browns in the fur.

#TourDeFleece2026 #HandSpinning #Chiengora

#TourDeFleece Rest Day # 2
No spinning, but I did transfer my Tibetan Mastiff / merino blends to skein/hank format for better side-by-side comparison. Making up for my unofficial rest day last Friday.

In these photos, top to bottom:

- 2:1 TM/Dark Chocolate (purple ties) 3-ply
-2:1 TM/Espresso (orange ties) 3-ply large & 2-ply small
- 3:1 TM/Espresso (yellow ties) 3-ply

I'd already done a 1:1 TM/Espresso blend, and found that it really didn't have the fuzzy halo you get from 100% fur yarn: it was just a brown yarn. So, the bottom 2 blends are to see if I can get more of that halo back with a smaller fraction of wool, while still keeping the benefits of wool's "memory". The fur is much harder to come by, so the more wool I can get away with, the longer I can make the fur last.

The 3:1 does indeed look fuzzier than the 2:1, so I'm quite curious now how it'll compare after wash, thwack/snap, and swatch.

The Dark Chocolate is a slightly redder brown merino from a different sheep from the same flock. It's still subtle, but you can see the difference from the Espresso a little more here than on the bobbins. It brings out the redder tones in the fur, whereas the Espresso is a better match for the dark browns in the fur.

#TourDeFleece2026 #HandSpinning #Chiengora

#TourDeFleece Rest Day # 2
No spinning, but I did transfer my Tibetan Mastiff / merino blends to skein/hank format for better side-by-side comparison. Making up for my unofficial rest day last Friday.

In these photos, top to bottom:

- 2:1 TM/Dark Chocolate (purple ties) 3-ply
-2:1 TM/Espresso (orange ties) 3-ply large & 2-ply small
- 3:1 TM/Espresso (yellow ties) 3-ply

I'd already done a 1:1 TM/Espresso blend, and found that it really didn't have the fuzzy halo you get from 100% fur yarn: it was just a brown yarn. So, the bottom 2 blends are to see if I can get more of that halo back with a smaller fraction of wool, while still keeping the benefits of wool's "memory". The fur is much harder to come by, so the more wool I can get away with, the longer I can make the fur last.

The 3:1 does indeed look fuzzier than the 2:1, so I'm quite curious now how it'll compare after wash, thwack/snap, and swatch.

The Dark Chocolate is a slightly redder brown merino from a different sheep from the same flock. It's still subtle, but you can see the difference from the Espresso a little more here than on the bobbins. It brings out the redder tones in the fur, whereas the Espresso is a better match for the dark browns in the fur.

#TourDeFleece2026 #HandSpinning #Chiengora

#TourDeFleece Rest Day # 2
No spinning, but I did transfer my Tibetan Mastiff / merino blends to skein/hank format for better side-by-side comparison. Making up for my unofficial rest day last Friday.

In these photos, top to bottom:

- 2:1 TM/Dark Chocolate (purple ties) 3-ply
-2:1 TM/Espresso (orange ties) 3-ply large & 2-ply small
- 3:1 TM/Espresso (yellow ties) 3-ply

I'd already done a 1:1 TM/Espresso blend, and found that it really didn't have the fuzzy halo you get from 100% fur yarn: it was just a brown yarn. So, the bottom 2 blends are to see if I can get more of that halo back with a smaller fraction of wool, while still keeping the benefits of wool's "memory". The fur is much harder to come by, so the more wool I can get away with, the longer I can make the fur last.

The 3:1 does indeed look fuzzier than the 2:1, so I'm quite curious now how it'll compare after wash, thwack/snap, and swatch.

The Dark Chocolate is a slightly redder brown merino from a different sheep from the same flock. It's still subtle, but you can see the difference from the Espresso a little more here than on the bobbins. It brings out the redder tones in the fur, whereas the Espresso is a better match for the dark browns in the fur.

#TourDeFleece2026 #HandSpinning #Chiengora

Time to catch up on #TourDeFleece posts!

Stage #12 (last Thursday)
This day I finished up my Tibetan Mastiff / merino blend experiments. First I plied up the 3:1 TM/Espresso, which was a MUCH better success, yarn-chicken-wise, than the 2:1 blend. See photo!

Then I split the 2:1 TM/Dark Chocolate (lighter brown) onto 3 cones, which went fine, and then plied them, which did NOT go fine! Perhaps I should have stopped when I was ahead, but I felt determined to finish before bed and started making mistakes. First one of the singles broke. No problem! I'll just splice in the free end and keep going. But while doing that the other two singles got horrible tangled. I fought the tangles for a bit, but eventually just cut out that whole section, tied a knot, and kept going. This one also ended with a 2-ply section when one of the singles ran out well before the others.

And in the end, you STILL can't really tell the Espresso vs. Dark Chocolate blends! (Both 2:1 blends are shown here.)

#TourDeFleece2026 #Chiengora

Time to catch up on #TourDeFleece posts!

Stage #12 (last Thursday)
This day I finished up my Tibetan Mastiff / merino blend experiments. First I plied up the 3:1 TM/Espresso, which was a MUCH better success, yarn-chicken-wise, than the 2:1 blend. See photo!

Then I split the 2:1 TM/Dark Chocolate (lighter brown) onto 3 cones, which went fine, and then plied them, which did NOT go fine! Perhaps I should have stopped when I was ahead, but I felt determined to finish before bed and started making mistakes. First one of the singles broke. No problem! I'll just splice in the free end and keep going. But while doing that the other two singles got horrible tangled. I fought the tangles for a bit, but eventually just cut out that whole section, tied a knot, and kept going. This one also ended with a 2-ply section when one of the singles ran out well before the others.

And in the end, you STILL can't really tell the Espresso vs. Dark Chocolate blends! (Both 2:1 blends are shown here.)

#TourDeFleece2026 #Chiengora

#TourDeFleece Stage 11
Plied up the singles of 2:1 TM/Espresso merino yarn that I split up yesterday. Oddly, despite precise yardage measurements, and each cone holding 21g of yarn, the blue one ran out considerably earlier than the other two! 😭

My only explanation is that I wound from the EEW 6.1 with slight tension on the bobbin to keep it under control on to the blue cone, but then transferred 105 yd each from the blue cone on my Lazy Kate to the other cones, and perhaps the difference in resistance impacted overall stretch, which therefor translated into different length calculations.

No biggie, though! I just tied in a marker where the 3-ply ended and continued with 2-ply for the other two, which were much more closely matched in length.

After that I repeated the cone-winding process with the 3:1 TM/Espresso singles. Interestingly, while both were spun from 60 g fiber total, the 2:1 measured 319 yd, while the 3:1 came out at 265 yd.

#TourDeFleece2026 #Chiengora

This is the third and latest. I've been focusing on even thickness and moderately thin, and I'm pretty happy with the results here. But at this thickness it is frustratingly slow! This shows several evenings of 1-2 hours of spinning.

The biggest challenge is getting the fiber to draft evenly. Preparation (carding and how you remove it from the cards) is part of the equation, but also the unevenness of fibers means sometimes everything can just pull apart.

At times I've been able to do fine "long-pull" drafting like I've seen in cotton spinning tutorials, but then you hit a short spot and it all falls apart.

So far this is only single ply.

Also, nothing in the photos in this thread have had their spin "set" with a hot bath on a niddy noddy. That's another experiment I'll be working on in the near future.

That's all for now! More fun experiments to post in the coming weeks.

#spinning #chiengora #DropSpindle

This is the third and latest. I've been focusing on even thickness and moderately thin, and I'm pretty happy with the results here. But at this thickness it is frustratingly slow! This shows several evenings of 1-2 hours of spinning.

The biggest challenge is getting the fiber to draft evenly. Preparation (carding and how you remove it from the cards) is part of the equation, but also the unevenness of fibers means sometimes everything can just pull apart.

At times I've been able to do fine "long-pull" drafting like I've seen in cotton spinning tutorials, but then you hit a short spot and it all falls apart.

So far this is only single ply.

Also, nothing in the photos in this thread have had their spin "set" with a hot bath on a niddy noddy. That's another experiment I'll be working on in the near future.

That's all for now! More fun experiments to post in the coming weeks.

#spinning #chiengora #DropSpindle

This is the third and latest. I've been focusing on even thickness and moderately thin, and I'm pretty happy with the results here. But at this thickness it is frustratingly slow! This shows several evenings of 1-2 hours of spinning.

The biggest challenge is getting the fiber to draft evenly. Preparation (carding and how you remove it from the cards) is part of the equation, but also the unevenness of fibers means sometimes everything can just pull apart.

At times I've been able to do fine "long-pull" drafting like I've seen in cotton spinning tutorials, but then you hit a short spot and it all falls apart.

So far this is only single ply.

Also, nothing in the photos in this thread have had their spin "set" with a hot bath on a niddy noddy. That's another experiment I'll be working on in the near future.

That's all for now! More fun experiments to post in the coming weeks.

#spinning #chiengora #DropSpindle

This is the third and latest. I've been focusing on even thickness and moderately thin, and I'm pretty happy with the results here. But at this thickness it is frustratingly slow! This shows several evenings of 1-2 hours of spinning.

The biggest challenge is getting the fiber to draft evenly. Preparation (carding and how you remove it from the cards) is part of the equation, but also the unevenness of fibers means sometimes everything can just pull apart.

At times I've been able to do fine "long-pull" drafting like I've seen in cotton spinning tutorials, but then you hit a short spot and it all falls apart.

So far this is only single ply.

Also, nothing in the photos in this thread have had their spin "set" with a hot bath on a niddy noddy. That's another experiment I'll be working on in the near future.

That's all for now! More fun experiments to post in the coming weeks.

#spinning #chiengora #DropSpindle

This is the third and latest. I've been focusing on even thickness and moderately thin, and I'm pretty happy with the results here. But at this thickness it is frustratingly slow! This shows several evenings of 1-2 hours of spinning.

The biggest challenge is getting the fiber to draft evenly. Preparation (carding and how you remove it from the cards) is part of the equation, but also the unevenness of fibers means sometimes everything can just pull apart.

At times I've been able to do fine "long-pull" drafting like I've seen in cotton spinning tutorials, but then you hit a short spot and it all falls apart.

So far this is only single ply.

Also, nothing in the photos in this thread have had their spin "set" with a hot bath on a niddy noddy. That's another experiment I'll be working on in the near future.

That's all for now! More fun experiments to post in the coming weeks.

#spinning #chiengora #DropSpindle

If we're going to have dogs as companion animals, why not utilize their fur? I know all the long-haired dogs I've known have appreciated a nice shearing! (My first job was working for a dog groomer.)

How #DogHair Is Making a Resurgence as a #Sustainable #Textile

By David Ramli
November 1, 2023

"#Chiengora—the art of turning dog hair into textiles—has lived in relative obscurity for decades, coveted by hobbyists and fanatics. But efforts are underway to turn the unlikely fiber into a hyper-sustainable fabric. The term is a portmanteau of chien, French for dog, and 'gora,' borrowed from the angora breed of rabbits and goats whose hair is used to make fabrics."

https://time.com/6330351/dog-hair-sustainable-textile-fabric/?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us

If we're going to have dogs as companion animals, why not utilize their fur? I know all the long-haired dogs I've known have appreciated a nice shearing! (My first job was working for a dog groomer.)

How #DogHair Is Making a Resurgence as a #Sustainable #Textile

By David Ramli
November 1, 2023

"#Chiengora—the art of turning dog hair into textiles—has lived in relative obscurity for decades, coveted by hobbyists and fanatics. But efforts are underway to turn the unlikely fiber into a hyper-sustainable fabric. The term is a portmanteau of chien, French for dog, and 'gora,' borrowed from the angora breed of rabbits and goats whose hair is used to make fabrics."

https://time.com/6330351/dog-hair-sustainable-textile-fabric/?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us