I don’t write, I don’t call… another huge gap in blogging so thought I’d do a post on my spinning!
I started spinning earlier this year (may, june? can’t remember which) and promptly became utterly obsessed. I got myself a drop spindle kit from here, watched the DVD (and some on youtube) and off I went! My first few attempts really resembled yarn barf, which I lovingly referred to as ‘Beckham-spun’ (Thick & Thin – yes, I am hilarious!):
yarn turd
Reassured by the SuperSeriousSockKnitters group on Ravelry that everyone’s first yarn looks like this, and that in time I would come to wish I could make ‘art yarn’ like this again, I stuck at it. Practice-practice-practice made for better, if not perfect spindling, and I started being able to spin stuff that looked like I might actually be able to knit with it:
almost usable
I was determined to stick with the spindle, but the one in the Learning kit was reasonably heavy at 50g, so I went for a quick pootle on Etsy (dangerous!) and came away with a handmade one, at 33g and then later another pootle over to a UK seller (I can’t remember who!) left me with a 44g one. A trip to the P&M Woolcraft stall at the Singleton show with Annie left me clutching a much-desired Bosworth featherweight – 14g! The Bosworth in particular is a dream to spin with – so perfectly balanced and such a long spinner, and so light you can spin frog hair with it.
However, after a few months playing with the spindles, I came to realise that I really wanted a wheel. Now – I think there are advantages and disadvantages to both kinds of spinning, and don’t really see a wheel as an ‘upgrade’ to a spindle, as such, but it was clear to me that: 1. my left shoulder was getting seriously painful from spindling, and 2. as a result I was never going to be able to make enough yarn to actually do anything much with, and 3. well… I just wanted a wheel and a new way of spinning 
I did A Metric Buttload of research on wheels – first wheels, second wheels and so on – there’s loads out there on t’interwebs, and Ravelry was great as usual – I joined several spinners’ groups and spent months reading posts about people’s likes and dislikes. In the absence of (back then) really knowing any nearby spinners I didn’t want to go running off to eBay and end up buying something I thought was a bargain, only to find it was missing bits, stuck together with varnish so it was unusable, purely decorative, etc etc.
At the Singleton show I got to try out an Ashford Traveller, and really liked it. I’m not a huge one for the turned wood look though, and whilst it seemed like a lovely little wheel and loads of people love it (and importantly, it was the right size for my tiny flat!), I’d also read of a fair amont of people who fund it limiting after a while and wanted to upgrade. As I’d already decided that spinning was now a lifetime hobby, and my parents always maintained you should get the best tools you can afford at the time, I decided to start looking at the sort of wheels they’d ‘upgraded’ to, and found myself looking at the Lendrum DT. Well, when I say looking, I mean buying ;P
I don’t seem to have taken many pics of it so here’s the best one I have so far, complete with cat, who has also been asspinnerated (and floor, which could do with a hoover):
isn't she clever?
I love it! It does everything I want it to, and there’s so much room for me to get better. It’s foldable (fits down the side of the sofa if I need it to) and carryable (if you have the carry bag, which I couldn’t afford, but I plan to make one…). It comes with the fast flyer which is great, as that’s (more-or-less) for putting more twist into your yarn – so good for things like fine spinning, and fibres like alpaca, and so on. It has a jumbo head with a masseeev bobbin for plying on – so big I’ve only actually been able to entirely fill it once, it’ll easily take 8oz of fibre. The jumbo head can also be used for spinning ‘art’ yarns as it has a massive orifice (the hole where the yarn gets pulled onto the wheel, nothing vulgar!) and can therefore pull in all sorts of coiled/beehived/dangly locked crap without getting stuck or tangled. Haven’t really tried it for this yet – not a huge art yarn fan – but I would definitely like to give it a go at some point.
So far I’ve only been spinning up small batches of various fluffs, trying out new techniques, and haven’t really knitted much so far from what I’ve spun. Here’s a few pics of ’stuff I’ve spun on the wheel’:
crown mountain farms, '12th planet', 8oz, 12-14wpi, 420m
spindlefrog bfl, 'petrol spill' plied with 'dragonfly', approx 8oz, 14wpi
my first 3-ply! white nz lambswool, hand-dyed with food colouring, 220m
handspun 2-ply 50/50 bfl/mohair blend, natural white/cream, 248m, 100g
anyway, that’s enough yarn pr0n for now – next post will be a couple of things I’ve actually made from my handspun!
