This is my first year participating and my goal was to spin 15 minutes a day. I was given a lovely spindle and some pencil roving for
Christmas, neither or which I had touched. I took a Beginner’s Spindling class back in March at my LYS, the Purple Purl with the wonderful Robbie. It was a two part class and we were to spin in between. Unfortunately, I hadn’t picked up my spindle since the class and only spun a little bit of my sample package.
I decided to start by spinning from my class sample package to get the feel of it again. The samples weren’t marked so I didn’t know what a lot of the fibre was, but I do remember the ones that were silk and how much I didn’t like it during the class because it felt very slippery and I was having difficulty with my joins.
This post will be a lot of photos. Hopefully they won’t take long to load as I did optimize them for the blog post.
Day 1 took about 40 minutes.
Whatever this purple stuff is, I really hate it. I tried it twice then stopped using it. It felt horrible and didn’t draft well.
Day 2 to the right. This was my last attempt to use the purple stuff. I photographed it next to my first day results. It’s a little better already.
Day 3 – getting better. I spun this in half the time it took me to spin the first multi coloured sample.
Day 4 – I did this orange in about 40 minutes. Still better, but when I look at it closely it’s not as even as I would like.
Day 5 – trying the leftover silk samples from my class bag. No, no, no. I still don’t like it. It’s too slippery and I can’t join it. I decided to leave the rest of the silk until I am more confident with joins.
Days 6 – 9 This is the Noro Rainbow Roll pencil roving I received for Christmas. I’ve decided I like it better spun up than how it looks in the roll. The problem with this roving is that it’s so thin already it doesn’t require more drafting. And drafting is what I need to practice. Consistent drafting is what has the finished yarn not look thick and thin. But come Day 7 I only had the brain power to do about 15 minutes and not having to draft came as a welcome change. I felt like I was producing. I used the pencil roving to practice spinning without having to park.
Beginners on a drop spindle usually start with a technique called “park and draft.” We spin the spindle and gather twist into a short section of fibre called the leader. Then we “park” the spindle between our knees or somewhere else where it can be held still and do the drafting where we pull the fibres apart and let the spin come up into the drafted fibre. This makes it more of a 2 step process and more manageable.
Without having to draft I could stand up and just spin, which was a lovely feeling. I can’t wait until I don’t have to park anymore. When the fibre broke I decided I would get out my Christmas spindle to see if it would spin any finer yarn. I was told the smaller spindle would spin faster and create finer yarn. Well, ya no it didn’t do that for me, probably since I didn’t draft more.
Not to worry, I can now take these singles off my student spindle and tomorrow I will try a different fibre where I can get back to practicing my drafting. If I have a brain dead day, I can spin the pencil roving on the smaller spindle.
Over the weekend, I watched a bit of the Tour de France. I used to be really into this event but haven’t watched in years. All the doping scandals made me lose my taste for his. Well, I remember those cyclists are crazy! What an endurance test. And the end of the last stage was absolutely pouring rain. I don’t know how they do it. I have nothing to complain about.
All in all, I’m pretty proud of myself for keeping up. I didn’t join an official team this year, but I’ve had some very encouraging remarks from experienced spinners on my Instagram posts. I love this community I’m in. People have busy lives but they’ve always taken the time to answer questions. #knittersarethebest And spinners too!
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