How to Spin Yarn Like Noro
Noro, a luxury yarn, is known for its gradual shifts in color and rustic appearance. When knit up, the yarns produce a gentle striped look, with one color fading into another. Although the yarns are dyed, carded and spun in a factory, the process the fibers go through is inspired by hand spinning and carding techniques. If you're a spinner, you can create a Noro-like yarn tailored to your preferences.
Things You'll Need
- Dyed wool roving or washed and dyed locks of wool
- Add-in fibers (cashmere, silk, alpaca, mohair)
- Drum carder
- Spinning wheel
- Plied waste yarn
- String
Instructions
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Card a stripe of dyed wool onto the drum carder. If you're working with dyed wool roving, tear off a short length of fiber. Hold the end of the fiber in one hand and rest the other end on the underside of the licker-in, the smaller front drum of the carder. Slowly turn the carder crank clockwise and allow the licker-in to gradually grab onto the fiber. As the licker-in rotates, it will transfer the fiber onto the larger drum. Before feeding wool locks into the carder, brush them open with a flick carder or a dog comb.
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2
Add a second stripe of wool dyed in a different shade. Position the fiber under the licker-in so it transfers onto the drum next to the first stripe of color. Continue until you have covered the main drum with a layer of stripes.
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3
Feed additional fibers onto the drum carder. Incorporate bits of dyed or undyed mohair, silk or cashmere fibers over the first layer of wool. Add only small amounts of these fibers, as you want your finished yarn to consist of between 5 and 10 percent of each add-in fiber.
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Card in a second layer of stripes, maintaining the same stripe pattern as you used for the first layer. When you've completely covered the add-in layer with stripes of wool, remove the batt from the carder. Slide a long knitting needle along the larger drum's seam, under all the layers of fiber. Pull up the fiber one section at a time, and when you've worked across the seam, gently roll the batt off the rest of the carder.
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Adjust your spinning wheel tension to spin a low-twist yarn. Attach the largest whorl to your wheel's flyer and position the drive band, which extends around the edges of the wheel, in the whorl's largest groove. Loosen the tension on the bobbin by twisting the key on the side of the "mother of all things"---the base to which the flyer assembly is attached---counterclockwise. These adjustments will allow you to slowly introduce twist into the carded fibers and control how quickly the yarn winds onto the bobbin.
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Tie a piece of plied yarn around your bobbin and feed it through the wheel's orifice, the hole through which the fiber will travel as it winds onto the bobbin. This piece of yarn will act as your leader yarn.
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Tear off a stripe of color from the batt and pinch it and a section of the leader yarn between your right thumb and index finger. Loosely hold the long tail of carded fiber in your left hand.
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Begin treadling your wheel as slowly as you can without causing the wheel to stop turning. Twist will gather in the length of leader yarn between the orifice and your pinched fingers. At the point just before before the yarn begins to kink up, begin gently pulling back on the carded fiber with your left hand--- this will draft, or stretch out the fibers---and move your pinched thumb and index finger back about an inch at a time. Continue this motion as you spin to create a lightly twisted yarn.
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Tear another strip from your batt when you've spun the first and continue spinning, using the same motions as before. The color from the first strip of carded fiber will slowly fade into the color from the next strip of carded fiber. When you either finish spinning the batt or fill the bobbin, tie a small knot at the end of the final length of fiber and let go. Continue treadling until it winds onto the bobbin.
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Wind the completed yarn into a hank and tie string around it in several places. Soak in a lukewarm water bath and hang dry to set the twist. This will keep the yarn from untwisting as you knit, weave or crochet it.
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References
- Photo Credit Spinning-wheel image by Tomasz Nowicki from Fotolia.com
