Fiber Musings

Random thoughts of a fiber enthusiast - mostly fiber related, sometimes coherent

Tag: Spindle Page 2 of 3

Stormy

By

On 25 Feb, 2014

In Spin

I came home from Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat with a lovely upper respiratory crud. I stayed home all last week to keep my germy self to myself. My work day was filled from one meeting to another.

Thank goodness for video conferencing. Actually, thank goodness for smart video conferencing software that allowed me to put up a picture of myself sailing in the Aegean instead of a makeup-less me that hasn’t had the energy to shower that day.

Stormy sticking her nose into my meetings, literally.

Stormy — sticking her nose into my meetings, literally.

However, Stormy was very interested in all these talking heads from my laptop. She wanted to have her say too. That is, before she decided I had worked enough and it was time for a nap by laying down across the keyboard.

The upside to all the meetings was that I got a lot of spinning done.

Silk singles on paper quills

Silk singles on paper quills

This represents the most spinning I’ve done on my Golding since SOAR. I might get through the second silk brick in much less than 2 years!

Here’s what the silk brick looks like in fiber form. Isn’t it pretty? I love all those subtle color shifts.

Silk Brick

Silk Brick

Spinning, Supported Style

By

On 25 Nov, 2013

In Spin

Click for full size

Click for full size

There are many sources of inspiration at SOAR. One of them is the Spinners’ Gallery.

This pair of shawls were spun and knitted by Denise Bartels. These beauties were spun on supported spindles and plied on the spinning wheel. The spinning, the knitting, and the blocking were absolutely perfect.

They inspired me to pull out my supported spindle collection and spin on them again.  I have never been able to spin more than a few yards here an there (other than cotton on tahklis). I’m not sure why. It just seemed such a slow way to make yarn. But then, 2 years to spin and ply 2 oz of silk isn’t exactly blazingly fast either.

It also has never occurred to me to spin wool on supported spindles either. I don’t know why but I only associate short fibers with supported spinning.

Once I returned home, I pulled out my supported spindle collection. I only have 3 in my collection so I took them out for a test drive. One of them has some cashmere that I started at SOAR in 2012. I didn’t get very far with them. I spun a bit, and it was a bit of a slog.

I pulled out another spindle and a small bit of merino/silk that was leftover from another project. This went much better, especially once I pre-drafted the heck out of it before spinning over the fold. But the spindle shaft was too fat at the tip. I will need to sand it down.

CHF_Supported

Spun Singles!

Then I went to the 3rd supported spindle I have. It is one of a pair that I purchased years ago at another SOAR. One is maple (cashmere project) and one is walnut. Both gorgeous, but heavy. Really heavy.

Feeling a bit like Goldilocks, I looked around and found the stone bead supported spindle I made years ago and a bit of sample fluff from Corgi Hill Farm, I sat down to spin.

I think I’m finally getting it! It will be a while before I gain proficiency, but it’s definitely looking like lace weight yarn!

Will this take over as my preferred spinning method? No. I doubt it, but it is nice to have this successfully in my spinning repertoire.

Spindle Fun

By

On 30 Mar, 2009

In Spin

Spinning Jill on a spindle reminded me how much fun spindles are, and portable. It’s easy to tuck a spindle and a bit of fluff in your purse/bag and pull it out whenever. And to top it all off, Kristine gave me one of her fun little pouches of fiber last week at the weaving retreat. The rovings are by-products of her dyeing process and she packages the bits of leftovers into fun little pouches. You can do as you please with them: wet/needle felting, spinning, embellishments, whatever. (I don’t see any mention of this on her website nor at Morgaine‘s, although I know that Morgaine sells them.)

ccf-spindle

The pouches are full of colors and each pouch is different.  It’s a bit like finding the toy at the bottom of the Cracker Jack box.  You don’t know what you’ll find in there. (Okay, you do, since they are in a clear cellophane bag.) Kristine was spinning from her pouch with her drop spindle, grabbing whatever bit of color that she touches first. This provided a completely random assortment of colors and lengths of singles.  When plied together, you get even more surprising combinations.

I couldn’t resist. I immediately started spinning from my own pouch. I’ve also experimented by pulling several short lengths of fiber of different colors together and drafting them together for a marled single. Intermixed with straight lengths of a color, the marled single keeps things shaken up. Between Jill and this pouch, I haven’t touched my spinning wheel for quite a while. It’s addictive fun!

Blog Note: After the blog move, I’m no longer getting email notifications that a message has been left on the blog. I have to physically visit the blog to see the messages. This also means that I can no longer reply to you via email regarding your posts. I will be leaving my replies here on the blog.  A search shows that this appears to be a common sporadic problem with the current version of WordPress. It may go away on its own. I just won’t know when that might be.

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