Spinning

I've known about spinning wheels for as long as I can remember, thanks to the fairy tales I read when I was a child. I thought the idea of making yarn on a wheel sounded like fun, but it just didn't appeal to me.

Then I started reading Spin-Off, the magazine from Interweave Press devoted to spinning. At first I just admired the yarn and the things people made with it. But then I read the issue on drop-spindle spinning and started thinking that working with a spindle was something that I just might be able to do.

I was busy then making my 200 crocheted teddy bears and my crocheted blankets from hundreds of pieces of yarn. Still, every time I read an issue, I felt that I was missing out on something wonderful, and eventually my jealousy became too strong to ignore. So I ordered a drop-spindle starter kit and vowed that I would teach myself how to spin.

It wasn't easy. The kit came with a copy of that drop-spindle issue of Spin-Off, and the instructions were just too difficult for someone who had never used a wheel. But I am a former scholar, so I looked at all sorts of books and bought Rachel Brown's The Weaving, Spinning, and Dyeing Book (Knopf, 1995), which was expensive, but worth every penny, because she talked about spinning with a spindle in such a clear way that I could understand what to do just from reading.

So, after promising myself that I wouldn't give up no matter what, I tried using the spindle. First lesson--wear strong, protective shoes, because when the spindle falls, and it will, it will inevitably land on your foot. I walked around with some beautiful bruises until I learned that lesson.

Second lesson--the secret is in the spin. If you get enough spin, you can get just about anything to stick together. I started using the Coopworth roving that came with my kit, and it was just right. The roving is rough and sticky, and as long as I got enough spin, I could get the pieces of roving to stick together. What I had to learn was to loosen up enough to feel the spin working its way up the fiber, so I'd know when I had enough spin to keep the yarn from falling apart.

Third lesson--don't pay a lot of attention to what anyone tells you to do. There are some very specific ways to spin yarn, especially proper yarn like the kind you see in stores. I decided early on that if I could buy the yarn in a store, why should I spin it? Of course, it helped that by the time I started spinning I had enough yarn to last me, well, let's just say that I had a lot of yarn. Actually, I still have a lot of yarn, and I figure that at the rate I'm going, I probably won't have to buy any more for at least five years, and probably more.

I spin eccentric yarn that suits my purposes. I use my prepared fiber for my yarn sculptures, which I want to be very tight and curly. So I overspin the fiber a lot, and I spin thick and thin areas, because I want to have a lot of variety in the curls.

I like my fleece straight from the animal to retain as much of its original character as possible, so all I do is wash it, if the person I buy it from hasn't washed it for me. I wash my fiber in a bathroom sink, filled with the hottest tap water I can get and a long squirt of Ivory dishwashing liquid. I fill the sink with the soapy water, and then I put in as much fleece as I think will get clean. I swish the fleece around a bit, wearing rubber gloves, and then let it soak for about twenty minutes. Then I rinse it in equally hot water, let it soak some more, and keep rinsing it until the rinse water is clear. It is important to use the same temperature of water every time, or the fleece will felt.

This procedure does not work for very fine fleece, like merino. The one time I tried to wash merino, it felted the minute I moved it in the water. Many people suggest using a washing machine to let the fleece soak and then spinning the water out. This might work with merino--I don't use my washer because it is a mini-washer in a rented apartment and I don't want to take the chance of clogging it up.

Most people prepare their fleece by combing it and carding it and otherwise processing it until it becomes a prepared fiber. Some spin it as it is, but stretch it and otherwise manipulate it to get an even yarn. Not me! I want my fleece good and furry, so I pull at it as little as possible and use a lot of spin on my spindle to hold it together. This doesn't make a sturdy yarn, but since I use it for my yarn sculptures and small weavings, I don't need it to be sturdy.

I have grown to love spinning. I've found that it's like riding a bicycle--almost impossible to learn at first, because it's so instinctual, but once you learn how to do it, you won't forget.