Spinning is something I’ve been interested in fairly
recently thanks to Knitting in Circles Podcast. I never really thought
of spinning as something that people still do. I always pictured it
back in the day as a necessity since they didn’t
have commercial yarn manufacturers. But now, I can just go down to my
local yarn store (or order online) and get pre-spun, pre-dyed,
ready-to-use yarn. Back home in Vermont, there was a group of ladies
who had a booth at the local county fair, and they would
spin. But most of these ladies had, basically, small farms at their
homes. A sheep or two, maybe some goats. So they,
again, spun fibers as a sort of necessity. They
could either spend, what I would assume was, a fairly large amount of
money to send the fleeces off to be processed and spun or they could
just do it at home. So, like I said, never gave it much thought as
something that I, living in a studio apartment in
Pittsburgh, would really do. But then I started watching the Knitting
in Circles podcast and they made handspun yarn. And then I started
reading more knitting blogs, and many of them spun yarn as well. And
then I saw how large the fiber selection at my
local yarn store was and it made me think that, obviously, someone was
buying this fiber and doing something with it, mostly likely spinning.
This was around Christmas of last year (2014) and since I was branching
out into crochet and really getting back
into knitting, I figured maybe I could branch out a little more. So I
started researching and I was shocked at how expensive spinning wheels
are. Like 500+ dollars (usually much higher). I figured they would be
around like 200 for a small beginner wheel.
I’m not looking for a huge Sleeping Beauty wheel made out of mahogany
or anything. So that dream kind of went on the back burner – there’s no
way I was going to be spending that much money (as a recent college
grad with student loans and a car loan) on something
that I wasn’t at least 90% sure I would like and use regularly. So I
discovered the drop spindle is the way that most spinners get started.
It is extremely portable, easy to use, and has almost no set up
whatsoever. The drop spindle that I chose came in
a kit (Louet Drop Spindle kit) which contained the spindle, a sample of
fibers (you don’t get to pick your colors, it is random), some Soak to
finish your yarn, and an instructional booklet. I supplemented the
booklet with YouTube videos (just search drop spindle
instructions and you’ll find some) and I was off to the races. The
colors that came with my drop spindle were a light pink, olive green,
and dark blue. I started with the pink first since everywhere I read,
it said that your first yarn will turn out to be
an ‘art yarn’ which, unless that’s what you’re going for, is code for
“lumpy and inconsistent”. So I sacrificed my pink fiber to the spinning
gods and learned a lot. Here is the yarn:
20 yards, 90 grams, 5 WPI, Bulky
Then I went to the blue color because there was
less of it than the green. My goal when spinning this was for it to be
more consistent than the pink. I was pleased with the outcome, it is
much more consistent, and the final yarn ended
up being much less bulky:
40 yards, 78 grams, 9 WPI, Worsted
Finally, I got to the olive green. This time, I wanted
consistent and thinner. My yarn weight of choice is DK so I was
shooting for that. Spinning was getting easier and easier and this green yarn turned out pretty much exactly like I wanted. It
was a bit on the thick side of DK weight, but overall, I was quite
pleased:
158 yards, 80 grams, 10 WPI, DK
So that was the end of the fiber that came with my kit.
I had the spinning bug and promptly ordered some more fiber from the
woolery website (since my kit came with a coupon for a future
purchase). I was, and still am but not to the same extent,
a complete novice when it came to the world of spinning fibers. I
understand WPI, weight, fiber content, etc for yarn and thus know
exactly what type of yarn I want for a particular project. This was
very much not the case when it came to fibers. I pretty
much picked out a few different breeds (un-dyed) and one colored wool
that I would make into something for the fiance (it all depends on how
much yardage I get out of it). I also picked up some Three Feet of
Sheep only because I’d heard so much about it from
all the various blogs and podcasts that I’d been going through. When I
got my new fiber stash, I got to work on the red fiber since I had a
plan as to where that fiber was going towards. It has been slow going
since I have a whole 8 oz to get through, but
I recently finished the first 4 oz and spun it off the spindle into a
center pull ball:
With this yarn, I wanted somewhere around a DK or heavy sport. I’m thinking this might turn into a hat or ear warmers so I wanted something that would make a slightly denser fabric when knit. And since it is for a guy, I didn’t think he would appreciate a very lumpy and poof-y hat. I am very pleased with the consistency I was able to obtain and I think this will ply nicely and hopefully whatever project it will go into will be nice as well. I have the other 4 oz left to spin and I think an end-goal for me will be to have this spun and knit for his birthday, which is in early November.
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