Breed review Bleu du Maine

This fiber sample was purchased from Wychwood Spinners on Etsy.

It was washed, and included three distinct types of fiber.  The long four inch locks were intact, and typical long wool, not very soft.  A smaller lock seemed softer, especially when pulled apart to card. Last, there were some wool that the lock was opened and jumbled.  The slight VM present was most obvious in these.

Most of the wool was white, with a few spots of discoloration.  The locks tapered to a broad tip, with discoloration, but were sound, and did not break when combed.

I processed this 50 gram sample three ways, to spin my sample yarn.  This shows a small amount of top pulled from my hand combs.

I took the largest locks and flicked them open,to spin from the lock.

The third was to take the smaller locks and jumbled fiber and card rologs.

These hand cards really are too fine for the four inch long staple length.  My batts/rolags were not well blended or tightly rolled.  They will still work fine though for woolen test spinning.

I spun a single from the combed fiber and a second single from the flicked locks.  Both were spun worsted, although this fiber begged to be spun woolen, no matter what prep I used.  I am sure that is due to it’s longer fiber staple.  The combed sample single spun the thinnest at 24 WPI.  The flicked locks were close though, spinning 23 WPI.  This single was also very consistently thin, although there was a halo to the single from the flicked locks.

I made a 2 ply yarn from these, a 12 yard skein, slightly over twisted and 13 WPI.  I kept a sample of the yarn and knit the rest into a swatch, using size 6 needles.

 I divided the carded batts equally, and spun two singles woolen.  It made a bulky lofty single, I was not able to spin it thinner.  There was no halo to the singles, which surprised me, so often woolen spun yarns have a halo.  Also although thick, the singles were consistent, there were no bumps from drafting, or neps. There was occasional thicker less spun areas where the twist did not distribute equally. The singles were 14 WPI and the 2 ply, a bulky 8 WPI.  I got 18 yards of yarn.  Again, I saved a sample and knit a thick swatch on my size 6 needles.