Over the years of going from happy experimenter to serious spinner, I’ve collected a few things here and there…3 wheels, loads of fiber and more spindles than you can shake a stick at. (And I can. Because they’re made of sticks. Heh.) But my first and most abiding love is my first spinning wheel, dubbed Hester Hestia…
Hester Hestia, my first spinning wheel. She’s a Seventies beauty, new when bellbottoms, Boogie Fever and Macrame were still a thing…
My friends on Nicollet Island discovered her in the basement of one of the old Victorian houses in the neighborhood. They knew I had just started teaching myself how to spin, so they gave her to me to play with. Hestia was beautiful, but daunting, and badly battered. She was missing parts, her only bobbin was broken, her wheel had started to separate, some rotten kid had drawn on her with a ballpoint pen, and some anonymous thing or things had chewed on her treadle. She was in rough shape.
Over time, I fixed her up. It wasn’t easy…in fact, I nearly gave up on her more than once. Maybe she was too broken. Maybe I was just too stupid about this sort of thing. I had only the vaguest knowledge about how a spinning wheel worked. There were all kinds of funky looking hooks and knobs and such. Terrifying for a very, very VERY new spinner…
The business end of Hester…complete with spinny thing, scary hooks, weird bungee thing, bobbiny-dealio, weirdo hooky support thingies, and the Knob of Mystery…
But Halcyon Yarns had all kinds of great information, and I quickly learned about my new prize. She was an Ashford Traditional from the Seventies, made about the same time I was born. I could still get parts, and bobbins–lots and lots of bobbins! One of her support hooks was missing, so I crafted a new one out of an old metal hanger. My dad helped me reglue her wheel, and I lubed her up, waxed her drive band,figured out how her tension worked, and eventually…I could spin with her. She spun wonderfully! The wheel was nice and heavy enough that you didn’t really have to treadle hard to keep her going. It was particularly fun with some nice loud Ministry or KMFDM, treadling fast and spinning nice thin singles in black and red. I was a spinner! A real spinner with a real wheel, like a demented fairy-tale person! And it was amazing!
Over the years, she’s still my best girl. I would say most of the yarns in my Etsy shop come straight from Hester. From time to time, I think about giving her a new coat of varnish, possibly sanding off those cruel pen squiggles and chew marks. But for some reason I just couldn’t bring myself to. Good or bad, they were part of Hester’s mysterious history, and it felt wrong to remove them. Instead I try to give her what she needs–more oil, a little dusting, an hour’s fun with some merino I just bought. She’s a sweet, crabby beauty and I’d be lost without her…
Ah, the holiday season…where everybody, including me, starts to panic about presents for the loved ones in their life. Like anybody who knits, I get loads of requests for last minute speed-knitting of pretty, warming things. Some of them are very doable. Many are too time-crunching. A few are jaw-droppingly ludicrous. Sweaters. Elaborate socks. Entire blankets. Union suits. Alien face-hugger masks with bendable leggies. Huge Dwarf helmet-hats with horns and braided beards. While it’s extremely flattering to hear that people think I have magical knitterly skills, I have to turn the big projects down. I also start getting that hunted look on my face, where I’m expecting to sprint down the corridors at work with my coworkers chasing me, yelling, “No, wait, it’s just a last-minute thing, I know you can do it by Christmas!! Come Baaaack!”
But that said, I’ve cranked out a few pretty things, here and there…
Mochi Marshmallow wristwarmers, with mohair,merino and handspun angora…A skein of silver angora I plied with a soft silk thread for extra strength and shine…
Both of these lovely things have already been claimed. I should make more. When can I make more? So many things to make!! So many! Do I have enough yarn? The right kind? Do I have to make some? Why did I make this fussy, time-consuming thing that everybody wants now? I Must Make Many Many THIIIIIIIINGS!!
And then possibly ask Santa for a Time-Turner, or manybe a Margarita machine. It’s medicinal, I tellya…
Ahhh, today is wonderful…dark, rainy, gloomy! Just the right kind of day to do some spinning! What’s that, you say? Don’t spin? But you’re dying to learn? *rubs hands together* Eeeeeexcellent…
Don’t be frightened–spinning is easy to learn and takes very little money to start. By now you probably have a nice little spindle you’ve made, all by yourself, with instructions from my last tutorial. Or you can buy them online–there’s all kinds of gorgeous spindles out there for beginners for reasonable prices. Wool is also easy to come by on the net–before long you’ll have your favorite suppliers to stock you up on demand, but I started out with the mother-ship of spinning acoutrements, the website at Halcyon Yarn. They have everything you need, and I do mean everything. But for a starter yarn, go easy and cheap–no alpaca or camel or angora or yak, not yet. Blue-faced Leister is a great beginners wool, as is Icelandic and Romney. A simple drop spindle and a handful of fiber, waiting to be transformed into something wonderful.
The first thing you’ll want to do is fluff up your fibers. If you bought roving in long strips or braids, untie the braids and gently tear the roving into nice, manageable strips. If you have a batt, you can tear off chunks as you spin. Or you can just take locks of wool and use your fingers or a dog comb to make a nice fluffy pile. And take a minute to roll a little fiber around in your fingers. How does it feel? Twirl some around with your hands, and see what feels good to you. That’s how you’ll want your yarn to feel. Now, tie some leftover yarn to your spindle, under the whorl, and loop it through the hook on top. (This is called, the ‘leader” yarn.)Put a slip knot in the top, then thread a little fiber through the loop and pull nice and tight. This will anchor your fiber for spinning… A spindle, all ready to spin!
Now, hold the yarn loop with your dominant hand, and let the spindle hang down from the leader yarn. Spin it with your fingers, counterclockwise. Let the twist go up into your fiber. You can stop your spindle anytime and use your fingers to smooth out your yarn. One hand will end up controlling the twist by pinching off the yarn, and the other hand will end up “drafting”; basically pulling at your fiber until it’s the thickness you want. Don’t be too worried about drafting right now–you just want to get the hang of the twisting from the spindle running up into your fiber the way you want. Spinning up the first bit of yarn. Let the twist from your spindle run up into the fiber.
How’s a good way to tell how your yarn is going? You can let it loop back on itself to see if it feels soft and comfortable. If it feels too tight and harsh, it has too much twist, and you can fix it by letting the twist run further up the fibers. If it’s coming apart, twist it a little more. But trust your fingers; they know what they want your yarn to feel like. You can always stop, untwist all the fiber and start over if it’s not the way you want it. This fiber looped onto itself really nicely. it’s not too tight, not too loose.
Running out of fiber? Add a little more! Just take your next bit of fiber and layer it over the end of your yarn. Give your spindle a spin and watch the twist run up into the new addition. Wool wants to hang onto wool, and you can keep adding on and on until your spindle is full or you’re tired of spinning, whichever comes first.New fiber added onto the first bit of fiber. The twist holds everything together!
Now, while you’re spinning and spinning, you’ll make mistakes for sure. Your wool will be lumpy. You’ll drop your spindle a dozen times or more. Your hands won’t know what to do. Just keep at it–eventually your hands will find a rhythm that makes sense, and things will get much easier. My rhythm goes like this: “Spin the spindle, pinch the yarn, pull the fibers”. The pinching is to stop the twist going further than I want it too, the pulling is to even out the next fibers to be spun up. And you can stop whenever you want, start back up whenever you want, and keep going until you can no longer fit anything onto your spindle.A very, very, very full spindle…
So what do you do with your spindle full of yarn? You can wind your new yarn into a ball as it is and knit with it. I usually prefer to set the twist–I wrap it around a niddy-noddy, a wonderful tool used to measure and skein up yarn, then take the yarn off, give it a good gentle soak in lukewarm water, *very* gently wring out the water and hang it in my shower to dry. (I use clothes hangars to weigh down the bottom of the skein so the yarn doesn’t kink.) When it’s dry, it’s nicely balanced and much easier to use. You can use that first yarn to make a funky potholder, or a headband, or a little bag to put in spinning fluff for later. But be proud of that first wonderful, lumpy, blobby yarn, and be proud of yourself!! Not everybody sticks it out with something new, and you just did!!
(If you have any extra questions about spinning, or get stuck and need a little coaching, ask me in the comments section!! I’ll walk you through any fiber kinks you run into. But I think you’ll do better than you expected.)
I have always played around with glow-thread and it makes for some really fun Halloween yarns…but this looks pleasingly chunky and wonderful to play with. I can hardly wait to get my mitts on it!!
There’s so much opportunity for fun here.
Meanwhile, I’m almost done with a chemo cap for a friend of a friend…and a little more spinning here and there. I’ve been spinning more on breaks at the Mines, just to relax. It’s fun to watch my coworkers when the spindle goes around and around…sometimes I’ll laugh and whisper, “Sleepy…you are getting sleepy…ALL HAIL THE HYPNO-TOAD!!” and we’ll have a good chortle. This weekend I’d like to put up a nice spinning tutorial for beginners, so I’ll play with the camera a bit this afternoon. The last tutorial was so much fun, I want to do more…
It’s cooling off…the sky is darkening…the leaves are falling…and I love every second of it!!
Finally, the month I’ve been waiting for!! Delicious, wonderful October!
So to celebrate I’ve been spinning a cheerful Halloween yarn or two. Look at these happy, happy skulls! A promising start to some happy, happy skully yarn!
While I love my spinning wheels to distraction, sometimes a spindle is ideal when you’re adding on loads of bulky things like beads or cocoons or scraps of silk and whatnot. I’ve also been using a cool trick for adding the beads: Stringing them into small bits of the roving with a needle-threader, then fluffing out the roving so it grabs on to the rest of the yarn. It doesn’t ladder like a thread can do with a heavy bead, and is remarkably stable!
Meanwhile, last night I just got back from visiting a friend who has an art studio at the Northrup King building in Northeast. I love those spaces, full of color and light. I kind of covet them, to be truthful. Studio spaces are so great. I never really used one myself, though. Why? Welllll, when you really get down to it; creatively I can be a bit lazy. When inspiration hits, the last thing I want to do is haul myself down through the cold, windry weather to where I put all my tools, paints, wool, etcetera. I’d just rather hop out of bed, have a wash, run downstairs or upstairs to the wool-bins and start mixing the fluff. These days I’m awfully lucky to have enough space at home where this is doable. If I was doing this sort of thing full-time, a space would make more sense,but I’m grateful at the moment I don’t need it. There are times though, when the paying job gets stressful and I think about starting a small yarn shop. There’s a bit of a yarn-shop gap in my neighborhood, and maybe , just maybe…
This week I’ve been taking a staycation to do some much-needed puttering. And one of the things I did was make a couple of new spindles from start to finish. If you want to learn how to spin but the sticker-shock of a wheel got to you, never fear! Drop spindles are easy to make, economical, and fun. Plus you can add your own personal touches! I ended up making one very large Gothly spindle for bulky weight yarns, and a more delicate flowery one…
You will need: A dowel,some sandpaper,1-2 packages of polymer clay,a good glue,paint or beeswax or wood-oil,(optional) one cup hook.(optional.)
First off, have a look at your dowel. How long is it? A good comfortable spindle should be between between 9 to 15 inches, depending on what you want to spin. If you want bulky yarns, go big. Smaller spindles are good for more delicate yarns, but if you’re new to spinning a larger spindle will be your very best friend. Sand your dowel so it doesn’t catch on your yarn and takes paint well. I also like to taper mine a bit because it looks nice. To save yourself loads of sanding for a tapered tip, you can use a pencil sharpener and then smooth everything down and take the sharp edge off. You’re looking for elegant lines, not Buffy the Vampire Slayer here…A bare dowel, sanded and ready for a hook.
You can add your hook at the top of the dowel. But if you couldn’t find a hook you liked, it’s not the end of the world. You can also add a notch to the top to hold onto your yarn. Just loop the yarn around your finger and slip it onto the notch, and it will hold nicely. You can use sandpaper to sand in your notch, or cut one carefully with a knife.A notched dowel with sample yarn. Just loop it around your notch with a half-twist, and it will hold just fine.
I would recommend painting just the top of your dowel whatever color you want at the moment, and sticking it upright in a jar to dry. You’ll use it as a handle later for painting the rest of your spindle. Meanwhile, time for the fun part–playing with clay! For a large spindle, you’ll be using a whole small package of polymer clay while a smaller one will take about 3/4 of a package. You can smoosh out the clay in a circle or square, add colors, glitter, beads, whatever makes you feel fancy. If you have a piece of your dowel left over, you can use it to make sure your center-hole will fit your spindle. If not, you can use your spindle to measure the hole,but be careful you don’t distort the hole too much.Polymer clay spindle whorls, ready to be baked.
Now that you’ve baked your whorls and they’ve had a chance to cool, you can add them carefully to your dowel. If the hole is a little tight, no worries–polymer clay is easy to sand down or even carve.If there’s a gap, it’s easy to fix with a good glue–or you can make a smaller bead with a tighter fitting hole, bake it and add it over the whorl, gluing it into place. But where to put your whorl? Some people enjoy the whorl near the top so you can show off all that hard work. But I like bottom whorls, because they’re so stable. Either way, leave a little room on the top or bottom so it’s easier for you to handle.
Once you’ve got your spindle happily positioned and glued, you can paint, wax or oil the dowel. I prefer paint and a nice clear-coat varnish…and sometimes some very small bore glitter between the pain and varnish layers. Because I get down like that. Once everything is painted, use a string to hang up your spindle somewhere out of the way to dry…The finished drop spindles, one a cute fairy spindle and one a dark, brooding Gothly one…
And there you are! Your very own spindle, for a couple of bucks and a little time…
This time of year I start thinking about the Halloween yarns I enjoy making. Every year it’s something different and and interesting. Sometimes it’s a traditional yarn in pleasing fall colors, or deep reds and blacks with glo-thread, or some wonderful weirdo thing with skulls and little fake bones and silk shreds. This year, I think a big-fun zombie yarn with unsetlling silk cocoons may well be my thing…
Olive green silk cocoons…beautiful, and a little disturbing…
I love this olive color. They could be really striking, strung with beads and pearls in an elegant yarn, or perhaps something more seaweedy and pirate-y. There are some pretty fun possibilities here, for sure. Creature from the Black Lagoon? Yay! Unsettling eyeballs? Definitely! Zombies? Why, sure!!
I’m also thinking seriously about adding a few surprise gift-boxes in the Etsy shop. Perhaps a box with a few random, interesting mini-skeins, an ounce of random cool fluff or maybe a knitted critter. I love surprise boxes myself, so I reckon it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to offer for other people. Plus, it would be so much fun to pack them up! I could add little handmade stationary cards, or an odd polymer clay dollhouse figurine, or tiny spindles with eensy-weensy yarns wrapped around them. I’d love to know what people might enjoy in a surprise box coming from me…
Meanwhile, maybe I’ll play with the cocoons a little this afternoon, and see how they combine with a few other fluffy things..hehhehhehhhhhh…
I took a little time off this week for dyeing more wool and various putterings. It’s hot and sunny out, which is perfect for drying lots and lots of fiber…I was also trying my hand at dyeing a fistful of silk cocoons a friend of mine gave me to play with. They looked a little more sinister than I’d expected, blobbing around in a jar of blue-green tinted water with a hint of pink. Lots and lots and lots of fluff out drying in the sun…with a sinister jar of blobbyness…
Everything looks so wholesome in the photo except for that weird jar. What’s in it? Olives? Eyeballs? It didn’t help that the silk threads kept trying to attach to each other and they came out in a creepy globby green mass that stuck to my hand. It was like running into a spider web, except I’d done it to myself on purpose. But the cocoons turned out a pretty shade of lime, so it was worth it…
Also, I decided there weren’t enough creepy candles at my house, so I bought a few more. there’s an Etsy shop called Darknessvoid that offers wonderful spine-candles. (I developed a crush on them when I saw these huge, flickering spine-candles in Prisoner of Azkaban.) I thought I’d try a smallish one first before investing in one of the full-sized ones. There were also some great skull-candles to keep my crystal skull-head company… They all look like they’re singing to me…I’m not sure I want to hear what the song is, exactly.
Between the dyeing, carding, spinning and mercenary knitting I’m quite the busy thing lately. It’s a good thing; it’s why I went part-time at my day job; to have a little more time for money-makers that soothe me and make me happy. Just looking at all the fiber I dyed up made me so happy. So many colors! such great textures! And it was all for me to play with…
And today? I wonder if I can stick a few more cocoons in the dyeing jar, just for more globby fun…
At least, it can be for me. Doesn’t stop me, really, but it’s more of a struggle than in cooler months. Wool can be a little uncomfortable on hot, sticky days, and after an hour or so of treadling I’m an overheated mess. But really it’s all the other projects, clamoring for attention. There’s plants that need watering, weeds that need pulling, a house that needs scrubbing, pets that need petting…and on top of that, I’d taken it into my head to try making an outdoor earth oven for pizza. I’d been researching, testing, making cute little bricks. I’m only about halfway finished, but I feel like I’m learning so much. But mostly it’s about a grown woman making mud pies in the backyard in the name of pizza…
Meanwhile, the bobbins waiting for me to ply them up are still sitting on the table, waiting and judging me… A few bobbins waiting to be plied…and waiting…and waiting…
I do think I can catch up a little bit this morning. Just to make the yarny judging stop.
One of the reasons I’ve been wanting to dye large quantities of wool is so I can make nice big spinning batts with my drum carder. I love that thing so; so much so that it has a name: Shreddica. And it’s a wonderful beast. It takes a chaotic handful of fluff and blends it into something really grand for spinning. Before I got Shreddica I mostly used hand cards, which took a while, or just shredded things with my fingers. (I still do that quite a bit with locks where I want to keep their shape.) Sometimes I have friends over and make them crank Shreddica while I feed wool through it’s hungry mouth, yelling, “Crank faster, carding-slave!” Oddly enough, people obey. I’m guessing feeding them cake and booze first helps…
A handful of fluff
I couldn’t keep my greedy mitts off the plum Shetland I just dyed, so I fed some to Shreddica, along with fistfuls of white mohair, border leister, a little merino and some leftover angora…
Plum Candy spinning batt
I also found some of my dark red had dried enough for me to play with, so into Shreddica it went, along with fistfuls of black merino and red-dyed “black” angora. I want to spin this one up myself, I think, instead of sticking it in the shop…
