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Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: drop spindle, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 1 - 8 of 8
1. Spinning singles

I haven't posted about spinning in a bit so I thought I'd show some recent projects. I finished spinning the Koi Pond roving and was quite pleased with the results. When you dye roving in patches it's sometimes hard to predict how the finished yarn will turn out.

The main difference with spinning singles is that you're meant to spin with a little less twist. I also spun it a little bit thick and thin which is something you have to relearn after you've been spinning a while. You tend to get into a habit of spinning a certain way and I've been practising spinning thinner and more even yarn.

My next project is a beautiful blue and green merino braid from Freckleface Fibers on Etsy. It arrived like this:
Then I pulled it apart and wound it into balls like this:
And now I'm spinning it up!
It's so much fun spinning colourful braids like this, the colours shift as you go and you never get bored. Here's a detail:
Then yesterday was my birthday and one of my treats from Bradley was a surprise visit to a fibre shop he discovered. It's in Mt. Albert and it's called Gemini Fibres. I picked out lots of treats including a lovely new spindle made from white maple:
I also made up my own fibre sampler with lots of types of wool I haven't tried spinning before such as Falkland, Finn, Blue Faced Leicester (BFL) and Alpaca in beautiful natural colours. I can't wait to try each one!

1 Comments on Spinning singles, last added: 4/21/2010
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2. Lilac yarn

This is the finished yarn that I made with the merino I dyed recently. I divided the top into 5 parts lengthwise, then pre-drafted a little bit. I was trying to spin thicker yarn than I've been spinning lately, and to spin it thick and thin. But it turns out that once you've been spinning for a while it starts to get a bit automatic. So this yarn turned out thinner than I planned and more even.
You can see the thick and thinness in the picture of the single above..
And this is the result. When I first started to spin I really wanted to spin thin yarn, but it can be time consuming and I thought it would be nice to have a thick single with this yarn. Anyway, as the single turned out a bit thinner than expected I ended up doing a 2-ply after all.
I kind of like the way a yarn will kind of develop as you spin and you sometimes end up with something you didn't expect. In this case I like the way the colours blend together and I'm happy with the results.

Thank you Kristyn for the tips on leftover singles. In this case there was hardly anything leftover and I decided to just keep the last scrap of single and wash it to set the twist. I think I'll make a tiny pincushion with it or something like that. I actually like the single a lot, so in future I think I'll try keeping more of my handspun unplied.

Thank you to all you spinners who leave me tips and suggestions as comments, I appreciate every one and do always get around to trying them eventually!

3 Comments on Lilac yarn, last added: 2/13/2010
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3. Purple plum spiral handspun yarn


This is a yarn I made a little while ago. I had to hold onto it for a bit but it's up for sale in my shop now. I spun it with some roving that was included with the spindle (pictured above). I wish I knew what the fibre was, because it was lovely to spin. I dyed it with a variety of purples then pre-drafted it into a nice soft big ball of roving:

This is the finished single:

Just to make it come out even I Andean plied it:

I know it looks a little crazy and maybe Andean plying is meant for smaller amounts of yarn. I do like plying with bobbins (I'm going to show how I do that soon), if I have enough yarn, but sometimes when there's just 2 ounces or so I'd rather Andean ply and not worry about having leftover singles. I find it works really well, as long as the single isn't too fine, which can cause tangles.

One new technique I tried while plying was adding little coils/spirals into the yarn by pushing one strand up while the other strand is held in place. Here's a close up so you can see the spirals:
 
The final effect was subtle, but I thought it turned out well, quite pretty.

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4. Lily spindle

The Christmas holidays have been great, lots of rushing around and family events. I'm not going to leave my shopping so late next year. Really. Anyway after everything it's been so nice to have a few sleepy days with Bradley still off work. He's been knitting his first sweater.

I've been working on a few crafts projects including finishing the yarn I was making for Bradley to use to knit him some warm socks. I didn't manage to finish it in time for Christmas. He's been reproachfully walking around in bare feet. But the yarn is all spun now! I'll post that soon.

Pictured here is one of my new favourite treats, a Lily Spindle I bought some time ago which arrived just before Christmas. I couldn't wait to do a little spinning with it so I've been using some of the fibre I got from Kristyn (Pleasurecraft) at City of Craft.
Here's a close up picture of the top, it has lovely detail and the scallop flower shape is perfect for holding the yarn in place. I also love the open style of the hook. It's made of olive wood from the pruning of the trees planted by the Romans 2000 years ago. They still produce olives and Gilbert Gonsalves purchases the prunings with no damage to the trees.

This one is 3/4 ounce which is for lace weight and a little bulkier. I'm still working out how to choose the weight of spindle to use (and which weight to spin) for various fibres. Generally I've just been trying out lots of things.

For example, this fibre is Cheviot. It's crimpy and springy. I'm guessing that spinning it this fine isn't what you would usually do, but it's turning out really nicely. It feels softer when spun for some reason. I also think the spindle is a bit lighter than you might normally use for this type of fibre, but I couldn't wait to try it.
The fibre is a pretty robin's egg blue, an icy blue, and I think it will be perfect for our new tea cosy!

3 Comments on Lily spindle, last added: 1/3/2010
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5. Homemade spindles

As you know, I'm now a little spinning obsessed. I've bought a couple of spindles, because I love what they can do, and there are so many beautiful ones out there, plus it's a bit like knitting, you need extra ones so you can have more than one project on the go.

But I wanted more, and decided to figure out how I could make one myself. There's a few tutorials online, such as a cd spindle (just Google it for examples), this one made from a cardboard circle and a pencil, or even a potato on a stick. This is a good way to learn so that you can decide if you like spinning before you invest too much money. (If this has already happened feel free to mail me any spindles you don't want anymore. Just kidding. Sort of.)

My favourite idea is a drop spindle made from a wooden knob. Abby Franquemont's video Drop Spindle Basics shows you how to learn to spin with a low whorl drop spindle that is just a drawer pull (wooden knob) attached to a dowel.

I wanted to make one that was a little bit fancier, functional and even nice looking, while still not requiring any real woodworking skills. The results were better than I expected, and these handmade spindles work really well! The big trick was to use carved wooden knitting needles which added a nice decorative detail to the top and a smooth polished surface that tapers. But of course a piece of dowel is fine too.

Step 1:
Assemble your supplies. I used wooden knitting needles, vintage wooden knobs (in a variety of weights) from an antique store, a power drill, a scrap block of wood, hooks, pliers and wood glue.Step 2:
Use the pliers to open up the hooks. These ones have a triangular shape so that the yarn stays in place a bit better than a round hook.
Step 3:
Place the wooden knob on the piece of scrap wood so that you protect the work surface when you drill right through the knob. Make sure you drill right through the centre.

6 Comments on Homemade spindles, last added: 12/7/2009
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6. Navajo plying on a spindle

In case you hadn't noticed, I'm completely obsessed with spinning right now. It's a shame because I'm already a jack-of-all-trades and I really didn't need yet another craft to keep me busy. But there you go, it's something I can't help.

Anyway, here's something I've just learned. Navajo plying on a spindle! Before I finished the candy cane yarn I posted recently, I had finished spinning a single from the first batch of roving that I dyed with red, pink and green.

I forgot to take a picture of the single. I wish I had because it was incredibly fine. It took days to spin. I actually began to regret spinning it so fine, but decided to finish so I could see how it would turn out.

After reading a comment on my blog about Navajo plying, I looked it up and tried to discover if I could do this on my spindle. Thanks for the suggestion Rachel! I thought this would be a good solution for this yarn because I had spun it so fine that it would have been difficult to wind it in an Andean bracelet and it would have gotten really tangled. (I've learned I could wind it onto a nostepinne, but I don't have one yet.)
So here's what I've learned about Navajo plying on a spindle (with a reminder that I'm hardly an expert at this point):

What is Navajo plying?
Navajo plying is essentially the same as creating a crochet chain, but with long loops. As you pull the loop through, the two strands it creates combine with the original single strand and you spin all 3 to ply them together.

Why bother?
The benefits are that in the end you have a 3-ply yarn that maintains the colour sequence in your single. Also, as with Andean plying, you use every bit of your yarn and don't have to try to divvy up yarn into equally sized balls to ply together.

How do you learn how to do this?
I figured out Navajo plying after watching this video and this one (and a few others) a few times. Then I had to think about exactly how I would do it on my spindle.

My big confusion was about what happens to the "knot" in the chain. The answer is that it is there, but it can hide a bit behind the twist. This is one reason though, why you might want to make longer loops. Longer loops = fewer "knots". However, the length of the loops also affects the way the colours blend together.

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7. Christmas candy 2 ply

Before I show you the mucky job of cleaning fleece, here are some prettier pictures of another finished skein. This one started out with the "apple tree" roving.
If you're learning to spin and finding the drafting difficult the best tip is to pre-draft your roving. Gently pull at the roving until it's thinned out as evenly as you can. When roving is drafted out very thin it's called "pencil roving". After drafting I wind the roving back up into a big soft ball and it's lovely to work from when it's prepared this way.
The picture above shows how the single looked. The colours are mainly distinct, with a small amount of candy caning here and there. This is when you have two different colours of roving that you spin together. I like the way this looks so I purposely let it happen.

After spinning the singles I plied on the drop spindle using an Andean bracelet. At this stage the spindle can get really full. The spindle will still work but the yarn can sometimes slip down a bit. I wind a bit of painter's tape at the bottom of the shaft to keep the yarn secure.

After plying all the colours blended with mixes of red, white and green and I realized that it was starting to look a bit like Christmas candy.
This is the finished skein. This yarn is also in my shop, mainly because while I love the yarn, right now I'm all about the spinning.

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8. Making yarn

Thank you to everyone who came to the Rummage Show at the Workroom. I had a great time with lots of fun chatting and a bit of swapping. I did manage to sell lots of things and so it was a big success for me as I went home with a lot less than I brought even though I picked up lots of nice new craft supplies.

Lately as the weather gets cooler I've been turning to the woolier crafts and my new interest is hand spinning. I had bought a drop spindle at a craft show but couldn't manage to spin with it. I picked it up again the other day and realized I should try Youtube for some more tips. I found a great tutorial by the spinning guru Abby Franquemont and that made all the difference.

The big tip is to begin by trying the "park and draft" technique. This means that you can "build up twist" in your yarn by spinning the spindle, then hold it between your knees so that it doesn't have a chance to spin backwards, then take your time "drafting" your roving.

Drafting means pulling gently at the roving to thin it out to create the thickness of the yarn you want. It can take time to learn how to do this while keeping the spindle spinning, so "parking" the spindle gives you as much time as you want. While the yarn is building up twist you pinch it so that the twist doesn't travel up into your roving until you've finished drafting.

I finally finished my first skein of yarn! The picture at the top of this post is the yarn wound up on the spindle. The picture below is the yarn transferred to a pair of wooden purse handles. I just had them lying around (they were up for offer at the Rummage Show and didn't sell, so that was lucky). The main object is to keep the tension in the yarn so that it doesn't get all twisty.Then I "set the twist" by soaking the yarn for 10 minutes in hot water. After that I took the yarn off the handles thinking that it might dry quicker. But this was a mistake as the twists showed up again and the whole ball got all kinked up:So I carefully wound the yarn back onto the handles to dry:Seems ok now! It seems this stage is akin to blocking a hand knit sweater.

Lastly, I am no expert with hand spinning. The whole thing is new to me. So if you'd like to read along as I learn how please do, but turn to the experts if you want information you can rely on! More experienced spinners are welcome to leave comments telling me what I'm doing wrong as I'm keen to learn. And then other people can benefit from your expertise too. And one warning to those of you who would like to try this: I suspect it will become quite addictive...

2 Comments on Making yarn, last added: 10/21/2009
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