Category: Spinning

Do you know that I look forward to spinning? Since receiving my private lesson, last Thursday, I’ve made a commitment to myself to spin every day. At least for now. Because of this, I’m seeing a lot of improvements, with my spinning, and I’m thrilled.

Ruth, the name I’ve given my Kromski Sonata, has been doing a wonderful job of turning wool roving into yarn. With my help, of course! 😝 However… all this spinning means I’m also running out of fiber. I didn’t purchase too much when I acquired my spinning wheel, which was a little over two weeks ago. I purchased about two pounds? Naturally this means that I’ll be buying more fiber within the next few days. This time around, I’m leaning towards a blend of merino wool and silk… and perhaps I’ll venture outside of just roving. We’ll see!

To keep up my motivation, not that it’s needed since I’m really sold on spinning, I’ve been actively following two spinning forums on Facebook and also, I’ve been searching for bloggers that are also spinners. Surprisingly enough I have not come across too many. From my eclectic website, I knew that Nicky spun and I’ve enjoyed watching her progress into an amazing spinner and early this morning, around 2:30 a.m., after reading the Bible, I stumbled upon Kristin’s website, Wool and Wheel! Hooray! Not only is she a Christian, but she spins, knits and loves to read also. Because of her, I’m purchasing an Illustrated copy of Pride and Prejudice. I’ll be gifting that to my twelve year old daughter and rereading it myself after she’s finished.

I’ll be sure to post pictures of my spinning progress within the next few days. Who knows… I might actually try plying!

About an hour ago, I used some of this lovely roving that I’d purchased from Cloverhill Yarn Shop, for spinning.

Aren’t the colors gorgeous?

I must say that I’m thrilled. Why? This is the first yarn that I’ve spun that has no loose twist that broke (in some places) when I wrapped it around my Niddy Noddy. This means, that I did not have any unspun areas, hooray!

Thus far, this the best handspun yarn that I’ve created! There’s still a little overspinning. The underspinning did not come until the last two feet. This handspun yarn would make delightful socks or a lovely cowl… if I had enough.

For some reason, I see this yarn with beads. Hmm… I’m still a newbie though, so I think I’m getting ahead of myself. 😉

 

As I’ve previously mentioned, I’m new to spinning. Today, marks the second week that I’ve owned my Kromski Sonata and while I initially “spun” yarn on my lovely Sonata (which I’ve named Ruth) for the most part I stopped spinning and just concentrated on treadling.

The past week, I wasn’t even doing that. Why? I was frustrated. When attempting to turn the fiber into yarn, it was getting overspun and underspun yarn and it was not being fed into the orifice. Yes… I had purchased spinning videos on Craftsy; however, they weren’t helping. I’m sure partly due to my frustration. Also, at times, things just don’t “click” from reading or video observation… at least for me; however, I figured that if a knowledgeable spinner watched me they could tell me what I was doing wrong. Following up on my intuition, I scheduled a two-hour private spinning lesson at the CloverHill Yarn Shop. My appointment was yesterday, with the co-owner Wae Wang. Guess what? She pinpointed my problem the moment I sat down and started spinning! Then, she spent the next half hour or so to get me to STOP doing what I was doing wrong. My goodness was she patient. Thanks so much Wae. She gently swatted my hands when I was doing the wrong thing. I laughed and told her, “I know, I know, I’m sorry…”  Guess what? I finally got to the point where I was spinning yarn! No more looking at tightly coiled fiber that wasn’t being fed into the orifice. Hooray, progress!

The above pictures show what I spun there and I finished it when I arrived home yesterday. As you can see there is still a lot of unspun yarn; BUT,  I got to the point (with her assistance) that I knew when I was making mistakes and I was able to correct my errors and keep spinning! Now that’s progress, Hooray!

This is what I made last night at home. As you can see, still unspun fiber; however, I’m continuing to improve.

And here’s what I spun today!

 

I only started pushing loose fiber through towards the end of my spinning session. I guess that was an indication for me to take a break and I did… about ten minutes later.

This evening is movie night for my daughter and myself. She usually sketches while watching the movie. I normally knit, but tonight… I’ll be spinning!

Shortly after I published yesterday’s post, I hit the sweet spot (again) and was spinning! Yes… my yarn was uneven, but I was spinning.

The added wool roving was ‘grabbing’ and actually being spun into yarn. Hooray! Today? Heh… regardless of what I did, my wool roving was being overspun before it entered the orifice. I fiddled around with the tension. Nope, nada, zero, zilch… I’m still getting coily corkscrews before the wool is wound around my bobbin. I’m making yarn, but corkscrew, coily yarn that refuses to be fed in the orifice properly. I attempted (off and on) for about an hour to correct the issue, but afterwards, I decided to take a break, revisit a few of my purchased online spinning wheel video classes and tackle it tomorrow.

Until that time, I’m consoling myself with the yarn from yesterday. It’s far from perfect, lots of lumps initially, but when I figured it out, you can see the evidence on the right side, I was spinning yarn! Tomorrow is another day. I’ll pick myself up and… try again! ☺️

Good news! This past Friday, my spinning wheel arrived. I chose the Kromski Sonata (it’s portable) in walnut. The first day, I really didn’t spin a lot. I focused on treadling exercises that I learned from my Craftsy class and just getting comfortable with the spinning wheel. It was my first time spinning.

I love the way this newly spun yarn looks. It reminds me of my dreadlocks! 😍

Yesterday I spun what you see above. It was frustrating (but fun) and my tension was all over the place, but I didn’t care. I was spinning! Woohoo!!!

I stayed away from the wheel most of today. Why? I’m attempting to suppress a sore throat… which meant a lot of rest throughout the day. I disliked that! I’m an active person. Also, I hung out with my daughter. I chatted with the BF on the phone. There was no way we were seeing each other today since I wasn’t feeling the greatest. He DID want to do see me today. We haven’t seen each other since last Sunday and it’s Valentines Day, but he understood that I needed to get better. Because of all that, I only started spinning about two hours ago. Today, I spun some of the natural wool roving that arrived in the mail on Saturday. My tension and uniform appearance of my yarn leaves a lot to be desired. 😝😱😂 However, that will improve… in time!

Tomorrow is President’s Day, and… they are calling for snow. My daughter is out of school. I plan to hang out with her and of course practice spinning and hopefully I’ll get a chance to post and write about my Woolee Winder! It replaces the ‘standard’ spinning wheel flyer. I’m in love. It was well worth the $225 that I paid.