Musk Ox and Silk
My spinning client send me musk ox (so very soft!) and silk (for strength) to spin.
Some of it had been spun before, and she wondered if I could take it back apart.
It was loosely spun, and the musk ox is short, so I started by teasing the yarn into short strips.
I held the strips and charged the carders with it.
Looking good. So I started carding back and forth.
The fibers opened up nicely and the blending went really well: here’s the resulting rolag:
After just an hour, I got the yarn back to fibers, and the rest of it processed. On to the spinning!
Unfortunately, the spinning and un-spinning resulted in some of the musk ox felting on itself. This happens with really fine fibers — too much handling results in felting. It’s basically the same thing that happens when a fabric pills. Here’s one of the rolags that shows that:
And a close up:
Fortunately, I noticed this early, and I separated out the rolags with the damage from the ones that weren’t. Here’s what happens in the spinning when you encounter the wee nubbies:
(Click to enlarge and get a good view of the nub). Yarn with these nubbies intentionally placed can be gorgeous and interesting — they add a tweedy texture to the yarn and make beautiful cloth. However, since so much of the musk ox was NOT damaged in this way, I wanted to preserve the smooth nature of the bulk of the yarn, so I spun two separate skeins: one smooth and a smaller nubby one.
