Nasty neps and nits

I'm gradually spinning up the 16+ colours but I'm having multitudinous probems with neps. Every few draws I have to stop and remove those pesky little concentrations of short fibres. From the 33g of fibre I've spun today  I've removed 3g of neps. I've also let many more go through the spinning wheel. It makes the spinning arduous instead of a pleasure.

Nasty neps

Close up of a nep

3 g of neps from 33g of fibre spun

I contacted New Zealand spinning guru Pat Old and asked for help tracking down the cause. Possibilities were:

• Over dyeing in the microwave which would make the fibres brittle and more prone to breaking. I tested the strength of the undyed and dyed fibre but they seemed identical.
• Short fibres in the undyed fibre which could form neps in the carding process. I checked the length of the fibre and they all appeared long.

By this time I was wondering if it was my carding technique. I'd done the carding with one hand - the other was out of action - so maybe I wasn't as careful as I should have been. I tried carding some undyed fibre carefully. There were no neps of short fibres before carding but after there were plenty. I looked again at the length of the fibres and discovered there were short fibres amongst the long fibres. In my determination to master handpainting roving and dyeing in the microwave I'd completely forgotted to check the fibre quality. I'd assumed Ashford's merino sliver would be ok. However this is sold for felting as well as spinning so it wasn't surprising that it had a mix of fibres of varying length.

Lovely gradations of colour

During the spinning I've let many neps into the single. There are far too many to attempt to remove. I'm just hoping they don't bite me on the bum and cause endless nits on my knitted garment. Next time I shall test the fibre using combs. If there are short fibres they will be caught on the combs.

The good news is I love the colours and effect of short rows in the knitting. The triangles are knitted with alternating balls.