spinning yarn for the first time - a week as a fiber artist
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- čas přidán 30. 04. 2024
- a week as a fiber artist
cozy vlog- a mix of some random projects i'm working on, as well as my
first shot at spinning yarn!
if you like my vibe and want to follow me elsewhere or support my shop- check out my link tree
linktr.ee/jrdummy
thank you so much for watching and hanging out with me, and you'll see me next time :)
May I offer a few pointers?
1. Your blending board. If you look at your own footage, you’ll see the tines/wites/teeth are slightly bent towards the handle of your blending board. That means the handle is at the top of your board. If you want to properly card using your board, that handle should be away from you. The fibre will catch better.
2. Staple length. I noticed you cut your pieces of yarn quite short. That also means your individual fibres you endup will be shorter. Anything shorter than 1,5 to 2 inches will become quite hard for you to spin as a beginner, because you have to remember there will shorter fibres in there as well. After all, you’re working with recycled fibre and you’re cutting some of them.
3. Fibre prep. Your ‘floof’ (roving) still looked like it had some lumps in it. The more consistent your prepped fibre, the more potentially consistent your yarn.
4. Drafting and spinning: consider trying to start your spin with a leader yarn. A leader can be re-used over and over many times, so it doesn’t matter that it’s a piece of commercial yarn you won’t be knitting or crocheting with. But it does give you something to build up initial twist with. You need that twist build-up for the park-and-draft method you were attempting. The idea is to get lots of twist in the end of the yarn past the hook (not the unspun fibre… yet), to ‘park’ the spindle underneath your armpit, and then let that spin loose into a few inches of the drafted-out unspun fibre. Pinch the twisted bit, build up more twist, park, draft out some more fibre, release your pinch, in the twist run up that drafted fibre… rinse and repeat until you need to wrap the newly made yarn onto the shaft of your spindle.
5. Bumps in your fibre where you don’t want any. Untwist the yarn a bit above and a bit below the bump. Gently pull. Let the twist back in and if needed, give more twist. Bump gone.
6. Set your yarn. What you’ve spun is a single. It will be weaker than plied (2-ply) yarn. But it CAN hold. It can even hold its twist quite well if you set it. All you need to do is soak it in water, squeeze the water out and thwack it. Or you can shock it. Place in hot water for a bit. Transfer to cold water. Gently squeeze out the water. Hang out to dry. Both are best done with yarn you’ve skeined up.
Plenty of videos out there that show what I’ve explained. And you might consider ordering some roving to practice spinning. Preferably not combed top merino, a lot of beginners have difficulty with it as it.s quite slippery. Fibre with a bit more ‘tooth’ to it like corriedale might be easier.
Good luck on your spinning-and-recycling journey! Spinning and knitting up my homespun yarn is where I find my happy place. I hope it becomes yours.
that's a whole lot of information- thank you. honestly the way i do most things is winging it, and now that i've trying i hope to get some pre made fiber and try again, but that kinda defeats my purpose of trying to use up what i have so im semi conflicted about that, and about spending the money haha.
but someday ill get there (hopefully)
@@jrdummy - I have the tendency to wing stuff too. Usually though, I tend to do a bit more preparatory research before jumping off the deep end and doing as I pretty darn please.
I just didn’t want you to get too frustrated and give up, because recycling ends of yarn is a beautiful idea. We tend to throw away too much so seeing you valiantly battle your way through that recycled fibre made me want to share what I found out through my own initial spinning struggles.
Here’s another idea you might consider investigating:
Have you considered blending bought fibre with your recycled bits? The recycled fibre can be ’sandwiched’ between two thin layers of the fibre you buy, and as such offer a support structure to make spinning easier and to make your new yarn stronger. It reduces the amount of fibre you buy and allows you to recycle.
One of the reasons I love spinning so much is that for me, it significantly reduces waste. I tend to spin for specific projects and I spin the yardage I need for that project. No more left over skeins or partial skeins anymore! I have very little left over. Some times I’ll consciously spin a bit less than the pattern tells me to because I know I’ll be able to spin more if I need it. After all, that leftover unspun fibre can always be blended into another project. I source my fibre as locally as possible as well, cutting out a lot of ‘middlemen’ in the process and reducing the fuel and packaging used in a lot of those intermediary steps from fleece to yarn. Mostly though, I spin because it gives me exactly the yarn I want, in the amount I need, for the project I want to knit or crochet.
Good luck on your spinning and recycling journey. I hope you stick with it and fall in love with spinning.