Handspun Bouclé: A Closer Look

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Mohair bouclé on commercial cotton – hand dyed gracing the studio walls

Back in November I blogged about spinning bouclé yarn for the first time. I loved the technique so much it lead me to experiment with other fibers other than mohair to see what the end result would be. Here are some closeups of the finished products.

Mohair makes the most perfect loops
Mohair makes the most perfect loops

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The above photos are all mohair. I dyed these after the yarn was spun, and will do a post about the dyeing process soon. I am really growing to love dyeing both fleece and yarn.

handspun silk on alpaca
handspun silk on alpaca

So this was interesting. I spun some silk and then looped it as a bouclé on some handspun alpaca. After it was finished, I washed and fulled it (a process of shocking the yarn with hot/cold water so that it felts a little bit) and regretted it! I loved how it looked straight off the wheel, but thought it really lost a lot of its character and looked rather clumpy after the fulling process. Now that it has been hanging up in the studio for awhile, I am intrigued with it. Hopefully over winter break I’ll have a chance to knit it up & see what it looks like.

alpaca bouclé
alpaca bouclé

Alpaca makes a really nice bouclé, too – very similar to mohair. I finish plied this with handspun silk and it looks so yummy against the dark alpaca fiber. I just wish I could have gotten a better picture of the entire skein, it was hard to do since it is so dark. I’ll definitely share once I have it knitted up in something.

I’m definitely bouclé hooked. So many ideas! I’m taking a break from that to do some core spun yarns which I will share more about in the New Year.

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