This weekend was the
Maritime Hanspinners Retreat. So I spent most of saturday and sunday spinning.
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| There is only one hand in this picture because the other is holding the camera. When I'm actually spinning I use both hands, the right in front of the left. |
I had to empty a couple of bobbins, which were full of pinkish purple yarn.
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| Making a skein out of the yarn I finished last year. You can see about 6 other spinning wheels in the background. |
This is my spinning wheel. It's an
Ashford Kiwi. I bought it in 2010 and got a pretty good deal because it wasn't finished or assembled.
I sanded the edges, stained and varnished it, and put it together. I masked out the kiwi on the pedal when I stained it. It is a good spinning wheel. It's a nice size for traveling and it's easy to use.
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| This is the kiwi 1. Sadly, the kiwi 2 doesn't have a kiwi on the pedal. |
I got it autographed at
the 2011 retreat, when Richard Ashford came over from New Zealand.
Here is some yarn I have spun.
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| The pinkish purple stuff I had to skein off this weekend. |
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| The purple yarn I finished spinning and plying this weekend. |
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| Some really fine pale green silk and merino I finished at year. |
This weekend, after finishing the purple yarn, I started working on some black merino.
I also have some other unfinished yarn.
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| A thicker yarn that I'm spinning out of mohair locks. |
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| A very thin yarn in a silk and merino blend. |
Wow, even with lots of different yarns, spinning doesn't make much of a post. There are some more interesting pictures from this weekend, but they are on other people's camera's. I don't think there is enough writing in this post, but I'm not sure what else to write. I would probably have an easier time thinking if I weren't sick with a cold.
I promise that the next post will be about sewing!
Spinning totally makes a post! I know absolutely nothing about spinning, so this is very interesting. Can you tell us a bit more about how you got into it? What projects (if any) do you have planned for the yarn you made? How exactly does it work?
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Thank you. I got into spinning because my mother spins. She teaches fiber arts at a craft college and therefore knows quite a lot about spinning, dyeing, and weaving.
DeleteI started spinning with a drop spindle years and years ago. I decided to get a spinning wheel after trying Mama's, though I still don't spend much time spinning.
I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with all of the yarns. I have knitted a couple of pairs of gloves out of them, but I don't knit very often because I'd rather be sewing (the same reason I don't spin all that much). I suppose I could weave something If I had enough of the same yarn, or I could get Mama to weave something out of it.
As for how spinning works, I'm afraid I'm not very good at explaining such things without pictures. I recommend consulting Youtube. A video on spinning will do a much better job at explaining it than anything I could write here, and there are plenty of spinning videos on the internet.
I think you're right about explaining how to spin. Trying to do it with words alone would be futile. One really does need video, or better yet, a live person with a wheel. I think it would be easier to learn how to throw pots on a wheel from a book than it would be to learn how to spin from a book. Spinning is a more subtle art.
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