[spinning] New Love

A couple weeks ago, I took a spontaneous trip down to The Fiber Studio in Henniker, NH and I bought a spinning wheel. I had no idea when I walked into the shop how to spin (although I had read some instructional books) and asked the lady there to show me. She did and left me with a pile of roving and all the different wheels to try out.

I made such a flipping mess of things- over twisting the yarn so that it twisted around itself, twisting the yarn so tight that it snapped and broke (!!!), etc. I was frustrated and hated it. But I remembered that I totally sucked at knitting when I first started, so I got the most beautiful wheel there- the Kromski Minstrel in a mahogany finish.

At home, I spun some single plies onto two bobbins, then used the third to ply them together. The finished yarn looks like:





Not very even but I love it. This picture was taken after the yarn was washed and dried. I love that after you soak the yarn, you need to whack the wet skein against the side of the tub to set the twist or relax the twist or something. I just liked the whacking part- it sounded like I was bitch slapping someone over and over again.

The white skein is on the short side because I really wanted to spin something with color. There was one of the rovings I got in Alaska...



And it became...







I love how the colors come together and how homemade the yarn looks. I am still working on getting the thickness even (and maybe even spinning thinner yarn) and drafting/twisting properly. I just finished spinning two bobbins of single-ply in a pretty denim colorway. I'll ply it once I figure out how to add some tension to my new (matching!) Kromski Lazy Kate.