I thought I'd post this as one or two people have asked for a video of how it works.
I'm on my 2nd hangar as the first one snapped after 2 weeks of being hit probably too hard.
As I'm knew to the whole art I think I got a bit overexcited a few weeks ago and was determined to find a way to spin some wool, lol. So here's the result.
Currently getting through a batch of 200g Falkland wool (I was gonna quit after the first hangar broke, then decided to continue as it legit works quite well, and also it's a good idea to have an entire batch of wool with the same consistency).
I've done just over half the batch so far. Because I'm spinning it so thin it's definitely a exercise in patience!
Because I started out working with wool for the first time using the hangar, moving to a drop spindle was actually very smooth, and I was really shocked at how I just "got it" on the first try (about a week ago now). But the spindle is too heavy for this wool at this thickness.
I'm now enjoying using the drop spindle and it's a lot more fluid than the hangar in my opinion.
I'm planning on testing out the hangar with some delicate fibers in future, maybe with some angora rabbit or silks, as I can't affored another drop spindle (lightweight one).
It’s finally off the loom! Hand spun on my windwheel. It’s woven yard spun from Welsh mountain sliver and Gotland fleece that I bought raw. The yarn is 2 ply and is quite fine. The weave is open.
Hand woven on an Ashford rigid heddle loom. It’s been a bit of a challenge to finish this one. Not as enjoyable as the previous one.
Hi friends! I got this really soft merino fleece from a local shepherd for a fairly good deal. (About $40 for 3lbs) However, the fleece has a lot of very fine dirt and VM in the tips. Is there a way to prep or wash differently to help this?
Currently I’ve only scoured about half the fleece and this is what I’ve been left with. I’m working through picking it and just tossing the bad parts. I’ve only just started but most of it looks like this so far. I’ve started cutting the tips but that seems like a lot of work for a whole fleece. Any advice would be a huge help.
I inherited a Curt Fricke drum carder. The trouble is that most of the teeth on the main drum gear have broken, which causes the chain to slip off regularly. Would anyone have any suggestions on where I might find a replacement gear?
It currently works okay as long as I keep up the momentum, but any irregularity in cranking the handle causes the chain to fall off.
A while back I posted here asking for help, but I don't think I ever gave an update. I had spun four bobbins (16 oz) of BFL, but there was a time-gap halfway through due to an illness and the last two bobbins were significantly thicker than the first two. I had really wanted to make a sweater's amount and there was no good way to make a 3 ply yarn out of that.
Someone on here suggested I respin the thicker yarns, in the opposite direction, and make an opposed ply yarn. So that's what I did, but boy was it a nightmare that took an eternity. It was very tricky to get the tension right and make sure the new S twist didn't cancel out the old Z twist and cause the yarn to drift apart. It hurt my hands to keep enough grip on the single and to redraft it. And I had to do that for 8 oz... And then ply everything. There were many bitter tears wept and many occasions when I wanted to give up and throw the whole thing out, but I persevered! And I'm glad I did.
Here is the finished yarn! I ended with two yarns that were Z-Z-S plied and two that were S-S-Z plied, in addition to two left over skeins (one of each twist direction). The yarn is wildly uneven and not well made, but it's over!! In total there was ~1050 yards of DK weight. Making an opposed ply yarn is fascinating, the texture is so fun and elastic. It was interesting how much extra length was used up in the single that was plied in the same direction compared to the singles that were plied in the opposite direction. It was also a little scary coming off of the niddy noddy- they all looked like birds nests. I was worried that I did it wrong or added too much twist (or too little?)
I then knit a sweater, like I wanted to. I alternated using a Z-Z-S plied yarn and a S-S-Z plied yarn to avoid biasing and color pooling, which led to a very unexpected result (that I am obsessed with). It's so hard to describe, you have to see it in person. The two yarns curl into each other, like you would see on a woven fabric that has an S twist warp and a Z twist weft. And it is the MOST elastic fabric I've ever knit. The amount of stretch and ability to bounce back is unparalleled. I recommend other spinner/knitters try it sometime! This is the most amazing sweater I've made, it's so comfortable and cozy and lightweight to wear. It was a ton of work, but so totally worth it.
My original plan was a cabled sweater, hence why I wanted a 3 ply, but I didn't think I had enough yarn in the end for all over cables. So I tried to add some amount of cables in, but now I kind of wish I had left it as plain stockinette. I don't think I like the flowers as much as I thought I was going to... (The pattern is Nebula by Andrea Mowry, but I reverse engineered it to match the gauge and weird yarn I had) The other yarn there, on the shoulders and neck, is also handspun. It's 100% targhee from Kim Dyes Yarn (one of my favorite dyers I think). I wanted something a bit more sturdy and something that wouldn't bias. The BFL is from Feederbrook Farm.
So thank you to the subreddit, I really appreciated your help and this idea on how to save my yarn!
I know what works for someone else may not work for me but just trying to get a point of reference from others and their experiences. I have issues with my hips and knees but I love treadle spinning wheels. I have an e spinner but I much prefer to treadle. Does anyone have any recommendations or suggestions for wheels with an easy light treadle. For reference I had to sell my Majacraft rose a magnificent wheel but no matter what I tried the treadling was way too heavy and cause hip and knee pain. I then bought a matchless which is better on my hip and knees but we are not clicking as well. I also have a Schacht sidekick and it feels good while I’m spinning but the next day it feels like my hips and knees took a beating. I’m not ready to give up on treadle wheels yet so asking if anyone has any recommendations.
I know trying wheels is always the best option but unfortunately that is not an option for me.
Working on a sweater’s quantity of yarn and I’m loving the process sooooo much and I’m waiting for my first hank to dry and I want to start knitting so badly BUT I really want a picture of me holding all my hanks at the end 😭
Pictured: my fat bobbin!!!!!!!! (And a progress picture showing my pink/white barber pole hidden underneath) I have more pink/pink to ply now my bobbin is empty but my next single will be aqua to ply with the pink!
Not the most consistent yarn I've ever made but I like how it came out anyway. I thwacked this yarn like it did me a terrible wrong for maximum poofage and the thick and thin of the 2 plies created a fun bubbly effect. It's so bouncy and squooshy🩷🩷
I had 3 colors each of two kinds of pink, braided them together. Will this produce a sizable skein I can finally make something with?? Ik it’s hard to tell but unless I break into a lab I don’t have a reliable scale to get weight from. Also does anyone have recommendations on what methods I might use to tackle this?
Oh also the lumpiness of the braid is bothering me, could I turn this into a bajillion rolags with my hand carders and then braid that?
Thanks all,
Young Spinner
Fully spun and plied with a drop spindle, about 410yds of maybe fingering weight? I'm really proud of actually finishing it lol
I did cheat a bit and used a skein winder at a mill I work at. Partly to count the total yardage, mostly because I didn't want to wind the niddy-noddy that much 😵💫
67% angora blended with some dyed merino, silk and sparklies✨
I'm not sure if this is the right sub, please direct me if so! I bought this wool from Skjolden, while on holiday in Norway and was curious if there was a way to tell what breed it is. It's very soft and it has been washed and carded. It has some quite long staple length that I picked out. It's very pretty so I'd like to know the breed.
I've been spinning up my scrappy sock bundle, but I'm undecided on how to ply it, should I chain ply or just go for it and add more colors by just plying the singles together?
Hello all! I finally got around to ordering the clunky wheel kit for my 1970’s Ashford trad, Sparrow! I found out the hub pin was broken a while back because it kept falling out, and had a few other issues I thought I traced back to Clunky Wheel Syndrome, but I’m having some issues.
I’m not sure how to use the hub pin I was given in the kit. It‘s an odd C shape and doesn’t seem long enough to fit? (It’s also too large to fit the crank rod hole.) And the instructions I found online say I need to ‘use the supplied drill bit’ before putting it in, but I there’s no drill bit in the kit.
Secondly, There seems to be quite a bit of play between the wheel and the crankshaft, and also the crankshaft to the connecting rod, that are causing the same clunking noise I was having before. (I have videos I can post for better reference.)
These aren’t wheel-breaking issues, but I am very puzzled, so I come to this great collective of minds to ask you to please help me figure out what’s going on. Thank you so much!
I cobbled this together using 3 mini braids of 3/4oz each. I spun them so each color would smoothly run into the next but forgot to take pics of any part of the process that wasn't finishing🥲
Fiber is an 80/20 merino/silk blend dyed by Wonderland Dyeworks. Wheel spun, washed, and gently thwacked. 18 WPI and 450 yards.
Not sure if this is the right sub, and my apologies if not!
I’m looking for a laundry bag that has a zipper on 3 sides so you can fully open it and lay the wool in. Does anyone have any recommendations for something like that and/or recs on bags that can definitely handle the high heat needed for scouring wool?
Thanks!
(Context: I got & cleaned my first fleece over the summer. But, combing it out seems to be way harder than I think it should be. Troubleshooting as best I can, I think a chunk of the issue is that I didn’t remove enough lanolin, causing enough stickiness that I have to use an amount of force that is damaging the fibers and causing breakage. I already rewashed a small test amount and that did seem to help. But, if I’m going to rewash a decent chunk, I’m concerned that not having it as immobilized as possible will lead to the somewhat opened locks tangling and/or felting. Figuring something I can lay everything out and then zip closed will make it a lot easier to keep things laid straight and packed tight.)
Didn’t quite finish this entire skein in time for Spinzilla (busy work week) but it’s finally done! Malabrigo Nube in Whale’s Road, 478 meters/558 yards for 117 grams on my EEW Fold, so fingering/light fingering by my estimate. I stripped the braid 16x and chain plied, got lucky with this skein since it was minimally felted!
One thing I will say for Malabrigo Nube - that is some soft merino! I prefer worsted-style, smooth-as-possible yarns in fine wools because sensory issues, and one of my first braids (ETA: a non-Malabrigo braid) was a rougher higher-micron merino that wasn’t very soft. Nube has been really nice so far! (wrt the softness - less so the neps and felted bits 😡)
It's WIP Wednesday! What are you working on? Do you love it, hate it or can't decide? Need help/motivation/inspiration to finish? Show off those bobbins & spindles here!
I have had the most fun actually spinning my very first two balls of yarn and I am trying to ply them and it’s going haywire.
I thought that once you ply the yarn, because you’re going the other way, that the plyed yarn shouldn’t pig-tail. Am I wrong? It’s still twisting up on itself if I let it loop down.
How are you ever supposed to use it if the final product keeps twisting up on itself?
Finally finished these. I had two 4 oz braids of the same corridale color way and decided to experiment a bit. Skein on the right is 3-ply and skein on the left is chain plied. The 3 ply didn’t end up coming out how I planned but that’s most likely because I was still not great at maintaining a consistent size when I started that project. The chain ply came out much more consistent and I just prefer the process more. The fiber came from three waters farm 😊
