Spinning my own Yarn
Ball of handspun
At the weekend I got my drop spindle out and had a go at spinning. I’m very new to spinning, I’ve only tried a couple of times before. I had a batt of corriedale cross which I wanted to spin up into a bulky yarn, about 5 or 6 wpi. It was full of bits of grass and had a few knotty bits, so I began by picking out as many of these bits as I could. I tore it into strips and predrafted them ready to start.
I haven’t yet managed to get the spindle spinning and deal with the wool at the same time, so I stuck with the park and draft method, getting the twist into the yarn then holding the spindle still while I let the twist travel up the wool. I was aiming for a good twist and a relatively bump free yarn, as my previous efforts had been a bit messy. The resulting yarn was still quite thick and thin, but it was much smoother than before, so I was pleased.
Closeup of handspun yarn
I spun just one spindle full, which came to a rather small 22 yards. I soaked it in hot water to set the twist and wrapped it around the back of my other half’s desk chair to dry. He wasn’t too impressed, especially when I also stole his computer to play the sims 
When it was dry, I joined it onto a length I’d spun before, and wound it on my ball winder. It averages about 6wpi, and the 37 yards only just fit on the winder. I have 2 more batts of the same wool, which I will spin later, and then I may just have enough to make something with it!
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Keiki Gifts Says:
July 8th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Thank you so much for sharing your article with our readers. You will find it here: http://keikigifts.brighterplanet.org/worth-mentioning/crafts-carnival-8