My second hand Susie-pro wheel came with a bunch of wool and alpaca top used as packing. It also came with lots of bobbins, some of which already had yarn on. The smaller ones held singles. Those huge bobbins had plied yarn (I have since learned that these are sold as plying bobbins). There was some evidence of moth damage so all this largesse was quickly bagged up with anti-moth papers and has been sitting for a few months. I wanted to get the yarn skeined off to both have the bobbins free and allow everything to be cleaned properly.
All this to skein off, and I knew how tiring it is to deal with just one or two full smaller bobbins using a niddy-noddy. So I looked about for skein winder options. The one that is sold to go on the Susie-pro looked pretty simple. I thought I could maybe manage to make my own version. So I did.
It looks pretty much the same, but the attachment method is a little different. Mine just has the right sized nut set into the middle.
It attaches to the wheel easily and spins nicely. It can be pedal driven by itself but the band slips if there is back pressure, such as when drawing from a bobbin. Oh well. It works just fine wound by hand and that is still much easier and quicker than the niddy noddy. I was well pleased. There was about 400g of the fawn, 200g on the biggest bobbin.
I plied the yellow and white singles together, then the white with itself after the yellow ran out.
All that fawn seemed to be the same stuff. So I plied the single with itself, trying to match the loose nature of the pre-plied stuff. Both the yellow and the fawn had breaks in the fibre. I’m assuming moth attack. I ditched the worst sections but there are still a few knots in the finished yarn. Here is some of it freshly skeined. So neat but it didn’t stay that way!
It felted rather a lot when washed. Grr. I had thought it might be alpaca, but this easy of felting suggests sheep wool I think? Here is the whole lot washed and dried. This is after I spent a fair bit of time pulling the damp strands apart as best I could. Oh well, it was bonus yarn and the bobbins are now empty and clean.
Then I had a thought. If that fawn stuff felts so easily, maybe it would be good to make historical felted hats from? In it’s current state, the length to weight ratio even suggests it might knit up as worsted, which would be brilliant as all the patterns I have for such hats call for that kind of yarn. Something to investigate later when there is room in the project schedule.
Montjoye Makkinstuff 