The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Food & crafts => Crafts => Topic started by: SmallTimeSmallholder on October 25, 2012, 08:18:30 pm
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I am soooooooo excited! I've only been spinning a short while but Oh boy, have I got the bug! ;D
My lovely Mum decided recently she wanted to buy me a drum carder (Hoooray!!!) and this morning, out of the blue a beautiful book arrived, about spinning with a modern twist.
Well, to think that this time yesterday I was pleased with myself for starting to crochet a cushion cover in my own handspun, and now I'm about to go upstairs and cut up old clothes to experiment with.
I haven't even dyed any wool yet :-X
How have you all got on with dyeing? Has anyone tried spinning anything other than fleece? :knit:
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Ha, welcome to the wormhole, full of wheels, fluff, yarn and other lovelies designed to remove all your money and time :D :wave:
To answer some of your questions, I'm spinning silk on one of my wheels at the moment, which is like spinning water, amazing ;D I've dyed with some natural dyes that I could collect around here and I've microwave dyed. Both are good fun.
Mainly i spin wool. I've just got a good longdraw going, but though I find it great fun to do, I don't really love woollen yarn and prefer what I spin with a worsted draw.
I've got the 'Guild challenge' stuff to spin for now, and then I want to learn to spin a boucle yarn ;D I will be learning and playing for years ;D
Oh and i'm saving up for a drum carder too, so I can process my own Shetlands fleeces and spin them ;D
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No turning back now... ;) :D
Ha, welcome to the wormhole, full of wheels, fluff, yarn and other lovelies designed to remove all your money and time :D :wave:
Exactly that. :D
I spent yesterday at a friend's house experimenting with stove-top rainbow dyeing and with microwave dyeing. What a lot of fun, I still have one blue eyebrow and hands as colourful as they are at lambing :D (Too impatient to remember to use the gloves every time... ::)) I dyed all kinds of woolly fibre and fleece, and my first non-wool fibre, which was bamboo. If it turns back into fibre from what looks like a pad of wet cotton wool, I'll spin it for a ply to add strength to the heels of socks.
The friend rainbow-dyed her share of the Teeswater lamb's fleece we just bought between us - oh! so very gorgeous! What lustre! What depth of colour! :love: and microwave-dyed some nettle and some banana, both red/yellow, which she is going to blend with some coloured Ryeland.
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STS, yes sounds like you are definitely hooked and it only gets worse from there ;D
I am quite new to spinning and bought a drum carder a couple of months ago. What a difference it makes. I never enjoyed hand carding and it was taking me ages.
Dyeing is new to me too and I have dabbled in it in the last few months. There are a couple of threads on here showing my results. I am sure you will get hooked on that too.
Sally
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Lovely to hear your excitement - I've got the bug too and am loving spinning my own Beulah fleece that I hand sheared and finally got around to washing this week!! Have you joined ravelry yet - its a revalation!!!!! (By the way SallyITN - I found a spinning group nearish me so Thanks So much for that tip :bouquet: ). JK love to know more about your stove top dyeing!
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Oooooooo, spinning silk sounds heavenly! I've have been spinning some baby alpaca recently, I thought that was soft, but I bet silk is amazing- where did you get it from?
I've been into town this morning to see if I could buy some wool dye, I don't know why I'm disappointed, needless to say, they didn't have any. I'm looking now online but it's a minefield!! I think I'm going to start with an acid dye (got to start somewhere!) but how much wool will 10g dye? Any ideas?? :-\
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One of these days (or years, more likely) I'll get round to spinning, too. I've had some cashmere in the cupboard for years - don't even know whether it's still ok, don't dare to look! - and half a merino fleece... Plus a few others, I think one Shetland and one Jacobs. :-\ It all needs space more than anything.
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STS 10g will dye about 200 grams of fleece
Sally
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Thanks Sally,
I've just ordered a variety of colours... Just have to wait for them to come now :excited:
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STS 10g will dye about 200 grams of fleece
Sally
Oh! The dyes I have bought, and the Ashford ones, say 10g dyes 1kg of fibre, or 2/3 that if you want really strong colours.
But I am no expert... :-J - only done it the once, and that was yesterday, results still drying! :D
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Sally, I am no expert either as I have only done it once as well. I was reading from the instructions on the Omega website.
Having said that I used the amount they said when I dyed the Castlemilk moorit fleece which is brown so needed a strong colour to cover it. I definitely think you could get away with less if you were dyeing pale fleece.
STS, I would suggest you use a smallish amount to start with. Its so easy to do, especially if you do it in the microwave, as I did. If the colour isn't strong enough for you it can be done again. That would save you using more than you need.
Sally
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I bought the silk tops from Oliver Twists at Woolfest. They seem not to have a website but they appear at all the big craft festivals and shows. Another good reasons for going to one ;)
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I'm spinning silk on one of my wheels at the moment
ON ONE OF MY WHEELS.... :o :o :o You have more than ONE spinning wheel... I get told off for merely buying another couple of bobbins... One of these days I will get another wheel, and I am saving up for a Schacht.... but that will take a while... :(
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Oh, a Schacht-Reeves saxony is my dream wheel ;D Not in the foreseeable future however :P
I have an old, local pattern double drive wheel that I began on. I don't use that now so it needs moving on (probably just for decoration, though it does spin).
I then bought myself a Lendrum folding, which is great and as it does everything I want it to I really didn't need another wheel!
But I hankered after a large wheel saxony and when this
(http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k70/jaykayg/ed07f855c8aac2a1e2afebdffda1ca4d.jpg)
William Gordon Clarke wheel came up on eBay at a very good price, I went for it. A day's drive and some TLC and sorting out, it spins beautifully and I love using it. I love just looking at it too ;D
The Lendrum is scotch tension and the WGC is double drive.
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Jaykay,
I have an Ashford traditional and I believe that has scotch tension. Can you explain what difference a double drive makes please.
thanks
Sally
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Jaykay, that is one lovely carved wheel. I thought my ashford was lovely but yours is stunning.
STS I've also only been spinning a few months, and am totally hooked. I have been using dog brushes to card. Next plan is buy proper careers and learn a good technique ::)
Spinning some fleece last night that i brought back from a demonstration on rainbow dying a couple of weeks ago. I'm :excited: about trying it out myself. Got plans for hats, matching scarf, gloves, socks etc. once I acquire circular needles to try out. Knitting isn't my strong point, but with all this spinning I'll master it at some point :knit:
The bug is sooo catching :D Enjoy :knit:
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With scotch tension, you can adjust the 'twist' and the 'pull on' separately, which I reckon makes it far better to learn on, as you can have very low take-up while you faff around learning to draft.
It's also much more adjustable but it varies as the bobbin fills up so for consistency you need to adjust as you fill. I started with a double drive and didn't really learn to spin well til I got a scotch tension wheel.
Double drive has the twist and the pull-on connected, so they are not as separately adjustable, but it's consistent throughout a bobbin. My WGC has quite strong take-up and I lace the yarn across the flyer using two hooks to get the twist into the yarn I want - because I'm spinning the BFL I'm on with at the moment quite finely. That done, which is easy enough, it just goes and goes. The big wheel has a lot of momentum, so isn't as good for stopping and starting but is brill for just spinning and spinning (or plying and plying :))
I can also do a true long draw on this wheel easily, whereas I struggled to find the right spot on my Lendrum. Which is not to say you can't longdraw on a scotch tension wheel, and in theory it should be easier to adjust to be just right, but oddly I didn't find it so.
I'm no expert so someone (FW?) who's been spinning a lot longer, please come in and add to this.
Thanks MS :) I got back into knitting because of spinning ;D
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Spinning some fleece last night that i brought back from a demonstration on rainbow dying a couple of weeks ago. I'm :excited: about trying it out myself. Got plans for hats, matching scarf, gloves, socks etc. once I acquire circular needles to try out. Knitting isn't my strong point, but with all this spinning I'll master it at some point :knit:
MS, I promised you some unwanted (by me) short circs, I know - but I gave them to one of the Tulle House knitters a few weeks back, as she was poking her neighbours in the eyes with her long needles making a teeny little something-or-other! I don't know if she's wanting to keep them or not; if they come back, they're yours.
I had a dyeing day on Thursday with one of the Stanhope group, at her home. We did stove-top rainbow-dyeing; I did primary colours + turquoise on my own raw fleece, and a few other things too, including a bit of the Castlemilk Moorit, C did dark red, hot pink, dark blue on her newly-acquired Teeswater lamb fleece. We also did dyeing in the microwave - I dyed some plied but not washed yarn, C did nettle and banana.
The Teeswater is just gorgeous. From strawberry pink to deep violet/purple, with streaks of blue, puce, pinks I can't describe - and such a sheen! You could eat it! :yum:
My favourites of all I did are the rainbow-dyed Castlemilk - I had thought it bizarre to dye a naturally coloured wool, but jaykay's comment about it being 'sophisticated' piqued my interest - and the microwave dyed yarn. For the latter I used the primaries again, and thought it looked garish going in, but it's just gorgeous now it's done. The Castlemilk rainbow-dyed looks, well, jaykay's word is a good one, it looks more sophisticated than the rainbow-dyed whites. I love it. Still can't spin it, but I will be able to one day! :D
Will post a few pics when all is dry. (It's taking a while, no CH at the mo.)
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I got back into knitting because of spinning ;D
Same here :) :knit: :knit:
And I got into spinning because of YOU! :D (And Fleecewife, and having bought some rare breed sheep, which was BH's suggestion ... so I generally blame the three of you :D)
I can also do a true long draw on this wheel easily, whereas I struggled to find the right spot on my Lendrum
I wonder if it's the momentum that's helping? You won't have to be thinking about your feet at all while you stretch out the fibre. I haven't tried longdraw on my Traveller but I think it may be harder than on the Traddy - you do need to "pedal" harder on a Travvy! :D (Which is not to say I can do it, really, on the Traddy, but I can see that with more practise I would be doing it.)
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I had a dyeing day on Thursday with one of the Stanhope group, at her home. We did stove-top rainbow-dyeing; I did primary colours + turquoise on my own raw fleece, and a few other things too, including a bit of the Castlemilk Moorit, C did dark red, hot pink, dark blue on her newly-acquired Teeswater lamb fleece. We also did dyeing in the microwave - I dyed some plied but not washed yarn, C did nettle and banana.
The Teeswater is just gorgeous. From strawberry pink to deep violet/purple, with streaks of blue, puce, pinks I can't describe - and such a sheen! You could eat it! :yum:
My favourites of all I did are the rainbow-dyed Castlemilk - I had thought it bizarre to dye a naturally coloured wool, but jaykay's comment about it being 'sophisticated' piqued my interest - and the microwave dyed yarn. For the latter I used the primaries again, and thought it looked garish going in, but it's just gorgeous now it's done. The Castlemilk rainbow-dyed looks, well, jaykay's word is a good one, it looks more sophisticated than the rainbow-dyed whites. I love it. Still can't spin it, but I will be able to one day! :D
Will post a few pics when all is dry. (It's taking a while, no CH at the mo.)
I have only tried one colour on the Castlemilk so far and have been very pleased with it. I haven't yet tried spinning with the fleece though. Too many projects on the go at the moment.
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I can also do a true long draw on this wheel easily, whereas I struggled to find the right spot on my Lendrum
I wonder if it's the momentum that's helping? You won't have to be thinking about your feet at all while you stretch out the fibre.)
No, it's something to do with being able to draft back against the uptake, whilst getting the right amount of twist.
I can't say I have to think about my feet ever - maybe both my wheels are just easy to treadle. Or maybe it comes naturally to me to have what my feet and hands are doing totally disconnected :D
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I can also do a true long draw on this wheel easily, whereas I struggled to find the right spot on my Lendrum
I wonder if it's the momentum that's helping? You won't have to be thinking about your feet at all while you stretch out the fibre.
No, it's something to do with being able to draft back against the uptake, whilst getting the right amount of twist.
Oh, I know, yes.
I can't say I have to think about my feet ever - maybe both my wheels are just easy to treadle. Or maybe it comes naturally to me to have what my feet and hands are doing totally disconnected :D
:D
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I am not a technical spinner nor a perfectionist, but I love being able to turn the fleece from my sheep into garments the family and I can wear. That is SO satisfying.
I have three wheels :sofa: :yippee: . One is an Ashford Traditional with a giant bobbin and extra large orifice, on which I am attempting to learn to spin very thick singles. That is single treadle Scotch tension.
I have an Ashford Traveller which is double treadle Scotch tension and at the moment that is what I am spinning on.
I also have a Lendrum Saxony http://www.pmwoolcraft.co.uk/html/view_product.php?ProdID=890&CatID=5&start=18 (http://www.pmwoolcraft.co.uk/html/view_product.php?ProdID=890&CatID=5&start=18) which is double treadle double drive. I promise you I didn't pay the current price for mine :o :o :o :relief: although it was still expensive. I use it for bigger spinning projects and I absolutely love it. Once it's all set up I can sit back in an armchair and go.
I don't do long draw and have great admiration for those of you who do :notworthy: :notworthy: I think you have to have perfectly prepared fibre to use that method and as I rarely use bought fibre it's not something I have felt the need to learn. Mostly I use my Hebridean fleece which lends itself to fairly thick woollen spinning, although I can spin certain Heb fleeces very fine when I set my mind to it ;D I also spin Shetland fleece which is easier to prepare well so maybe I will have to learn the long draw after all. I think I am halfway there with the BFL I'm currently spinning. I wonder if a double treadle wheel makes it easier to spin using the long draw - it is so much easier to forget your feet and to treadle evenly. I grew up with a treadle sewing machine, so treadling has always been easy for me anyway - which is great as I can concentrate on my hands.
I have spun silk and alpaca but always end up itchy and coughing from both. I suppose asthma and spinning don't always go well together :-[
I absolutely love dyeing. Mostly I have used acid dyes, although the ones I started with became unobtainable so I have recently bought some from George Weil but haven't used them yet - something to really look forward to. There are so many techniques to try. I have Deb Menz's book 'Colour in Spinning' which has some very exciting projects in, although it's all a bit anally retentive for me as I'm more of a 'throw it in and see what happens' kind of dyer. Having said that I have kept notes so I can reproduce the more successful colour schemes.
I want to do more natural dyeing but am handicapped by our very iron-rich private water supply, which saddens the colours. However, I have now saved up 125g/ 4 3/8 ounces of onion skins (Bionic :thumbsup: ) so once my energy levels increase a bit more I will have a go at that. Very exciting :yippee: :yippee:
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At the moment (and probably for the foreseeable future) I have a Lendrum, upright/foldable - love it to bits and had specifically decided to get it in preference to an Ashford. It took months to arrive though...
Sadly while I still have two very untidy children living with their equally untidy parents around there is juts not enough space to have another wheel set up in our main living area (the one with the fire going...), so I have time save up for a Schacht! I am alo a sucker for modern design wheels...
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I have been spinning my first soft spun singles. I have used washed and uncarded south down fleece and am now soaking it in hot water, as apparently that sets in the twist. I'm then going to spin it again running through some metalic thread to give it some sparkle.
I've been trying to source things like threaded pom poms etc to spin into some fleeces. Does anyone know of a company that does that kind of thing? At the moment I'm getting bits from all over the place.
I didn't know what longdraw spinning was so I've just googled it- Wow!! What type of fleece do you use for that?!
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I've learned long draw with merino tops. Truthfully I don't do it much because though I find it fun, I prefer the result from worsted-spun yarn.
As for pom poms, there's this sort of stuff? Folk are selling more colours on eBay.
yarn with bobbles (http://www.rosarhodesltd.co.uk/1-x-100grm-pomp-bobble-knitting-wool-518-p.asp)
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I didn't know what longdraw spinning was so I've just googled it- Wow!! What type of fleece do you use for that?!
You can spin it with anything that doesn't have too long a staple. It's almost a must for very short staple fibre but is suitable for anything up to and including Blue-faced Leicester. I don't think you'd get it to work on Teeswater or Wensleydale - but am happy to be corrected and told the techniques to use! ;)
You can do longdraw from combed tops - here's a video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFK6NGwHGgw#) that shows you how to spin from the fold (she's using merino top, as it happens), which is the technique you would use to do longdraw from tops, but it is more usual to do longdraw from carded rolags.
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I don't do longdraw from the fold with tops, I do it from the end, I find it 'runs' better.
Those Longwools are perfect worsted wools, so no you wouldn't woollen spin them.
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With scotch tension, you can adjust the 'twist' and the 'pull on' separately, which I reckon makes it far better to learn on, as you can have very low take-up while you faff around learning to draft.
It's also much more adjustable but it varies as the bobbin fills up so for consistency you need to adjust as you fill. I started with a double drive and didn't really learn to spin well til I got a scotch tension wheel.
Double drive has the twist and the pull-on connected, so they are not as separately adjustable, but it's consistent throughout a bobbin. My WGC has quite strong take-up and I lace the yarn across the flyer using two hooks to get the twist into the yarn I want - because I'm spinning the BFL I'm on with at the moment quite finely. That done, which is easy enough, it just goes and goes. The big wheel has a lot of momentum, so isn't as good for stopping and starting but is brill for just spinning and spinning (or plying and plying :))
I can also do a true long draw on this wheel easily, whereas I struggled to find the right spot on my Lendrum. Which is not to say you can't longdraw on a scotch tension wheel, and in theory it should be easier to adjust to be just right, but oddly I didn't find it so.
I'm no expert so someone (FW?) who's been spinning a lot longer, please come in and add to this.
Thanks MS :) I got back into knitting because of spinning ;D
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Were you trying to say something, sallyanneclarke?
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I've been spinning for about a year and a half although I didn't practice enough to start with so I'm still not that good. Atm I am spinning a Llanwenog fleece into a chunky yarn to knit myself a big jumper.
I haven't tried dyeing yet although I did buy a starter kit when I was at Wonderwool the year before last. I do want to have a go though.
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I have just started spinning silk. Only spun a few inches so far and its not easy. I broke the thread and you can't join it in in the same way as you do wool because it doesn't cling. . Hmmm, not sure how I am going to get on with this.
I am spinning from a silk cap that I bought at wonderwool.
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I have some silk handkerchiefs but I want to just spin a bit in with some fleece to add colour.
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I have some silk handkerchiefs but I want to just spin a bit in with some fleece to add colour.
Lesley are you going to combine the fleece and silk before you spin or afterwards. I am spinning my silk and am now wondering how to incorporate it into something already spun.
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I thought I'd card it with the fleece. There's not a lot so it will just make a tiny splash of colour at intervals.