I'm so Dizzy.... my head is spinning

No, not that kind of spinning (you know, the one where you sit on a stationary bike and watch videos of the world going by...), real spinning. Like Rapunzel and Sleeping Beauty and all our foremothers. Ok, maybe not quite in the league of Rapunzel yet, but hey, she had a wheel. I'm doing this on a drop spindle and a roughly homemade one at that. In it's simplest form, a drop spindle is a dowel with a weighted disk, or whirl, on it, and a hook of some sort to guide the fibers through. I won't try to do a thorough article on the art and science of spinning, if you are interested at all, google "handspinning" or "drop spindle" and you will get lots of information.

I've blogged before about knitting and sewing, so you should already know that I'm "into" fiber arts. When I began working with wools to craft diaper covers for cloth diapering, I soon realized that my former opinions of itchy rough wools were way off base and that nice wool, good wool, is a true pleasure to touch and work with. This new appreciation for wool combined with my natural love to make messes and I started messing with hand dyeing my wool yarns. This in turn led to a curiosity about hand-spinning my own yarns. Some hand dyed yarns are truly beautiful, but when I saw examples of the exquisite depths that could be accomplished by dying the rovings (thats the un-spun wool, just big hanks of wool) and then spinning and plying those fibers, I knew I had to try this.

For my first attempts, I started with what is called "pencil rovings" that is, the wool is carded and combed and drawn out into thin ropes or strings. It is not spun yet so it is quite fragile, the fibers are merely laying beside each other, not intertwined. I dyed some white roving from Chester Farms Cestari wool and built a spindle (very basic, pretty much equal parts wood dowel, bent paperclip, rubber bands, and scratched CD/DVDs). Some instructional videos from YouTube and I was off and spinning.

Spinning is a multi-step process, you spin one strand and it's called a "single", you then ply (spin together) two or more strands to create a finished yarn. The single is spun clockwise and then the plying is done counter clockwise so theoretically, the two spins balance each other out and the result is a yarn that will lay flat and not twist up on itself. I'm still working on that.

Next, I was curious to try spinning with "real" roving where I would have to draft it myself. This is still not raw fleece, it has been carded and combed. This wool comes in big hanks and I prepare to spin by tearing off strips of the fibers and dividing them down, then "Drafting" or drawing them out. Then I spin them in much the same way as the pencil rovings. The first roving wool I did is some mystery wool I picked up at my local yarn shop, it's a tweedy gray-brown, natural (undyed) and pretty kinky/curly. I also did some "Karaoke" roving which is a wonderfully silky blend of soy fiber and fine wool, I really enjoy spinning that, it is so strong and light that you can practically spin sewing thread. Finally, I ordered a fiber sampler from Amber at Mai Mai BB and have been playing with all sorts of wonderful wool like Corridale, Merino, Columbia, and Blue Faced Leicester. Her yarns and dyeworks are absolutely stunning.

The brown-gray-tweedy wool.

Spun up, two ply. It has a very rustic home-spun look although it is actually pretty consistent in guage, not too much thick-n-thin.

Here is a comparison of the original pencil roving next to a four ply yarn made of it. The roving is very light, you can see through it. This is one strand green and one strand white spun together, then plied with a single made of two strands white.

The finished green and white yarn.I really love this one, I wish it would photgraph as well as it really looks. It is three ply of the Cestari, each dyed as roving and spun, then plied together. There is pink, blue, and violet and each of those are varigated from white through it's darkest shade. This leaves the yarn with no inch the same as any other inch. This one is a novelty yarn, it is Cestari pencil roving spun with bits of dyed Peace Fleece felting fiber. The felting fiber isn't really inteded for spinning so it's very nubby. This skein is still hanging to set the twist, I'm really not sure if it is going to stay together or not, it's only one ply, I may have to ply with another strand to hold it all together.

I have some BFL (Blue Faced Leicester) and some Karaoke on the spindles, I'll post pictures of those when they are finished.