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Learning to Spin
Wed Oct 16 2013

I've got a basket full of rolag's, so it's time to learn how to spin those so I can card the other bag and a half of wool I have into more rolag's for more spinning.

What have I learned from carding my first half of a bag of wool into rolag's? I need to learn how to better clean wool in the future and how to prepare the wool before carding. I've watched countless videos on this, and none of the raw wool I've seen so far looks anything like what I'm working with.

Admittedly though, I doubt if any of that wool was sheared, shoved straight into a box and shipped off as mine was. If I ever have fiber animals (probably alpacas), I will definitely groom the animals before shearing. I've come to hate foxtails (a type of weed that Yetzirah's dog recently had a run-in with) and whatever other seed-pod I've found in the wool that has REALLY spiny seeds that keep sticking my fingers. I've never seen anything like that here, so I'm thinking it may not be found this far west.

But I digress...

So, I'm learning to spin. After several false starts, I think I've got a tentative grasp on what I'm doing. That is to say, there is yarn on a bobbin where there was rolls of wool before. It's not pretty, but it's yarn.

I've discovered that where my patience has failed, my stubbornness has prevailed in this venture.

Also, Jake has learned that when Mommy sits in front of the funny spinning thing and starts to swear, it's a good time for him to hide.

1 Comment
  • From:
    Yetzirah (Legacy)
    On:
    Thu Oct 17 2013
    So your fleece wasn't washed?

    You are 'spinning in the grease' as they say?

    That's Pam's favorite way to do it, though I think she does wash the fleece once to get some of the nasty off it.

    It's hard to learn to spin right on a wheel at first, there are too many things to remember all at once. But if you keep at it, you will prevail.
    The only time I ever really 'got it' was using a drop spindle, because I could 'park it' and let the twist go up the roving, then spin it and stop again. I finally got the feel of what I was doing. But it is just not my 'thing'. Though I can see how it could become very addictive and satisfying if mastered. Very Zen and meditative.

    Don't give up!