DIY Support Spindle

I first began spinning in July of 2017. (that post can be found here) I began with a homemade drop spindle and while I have tried a variety of fibres, I had not yet explored a different type of spindle. I was curious about the difference between spinning with a drop spindle (where the spindle is spinning suspended in the air) and spinning supported. ( a support spindle, is as its name implies, spins "supported" generally in some type of bowl)
why had I not tried one? well I did not have one. There are many gorgeous spindles available online, but of course, by the time one adds shipping and currency exchange they can get a little pricey....what if I find I don't like spinning this way.....would be a bit of a waste. So I decided to try making my own.

I gathered a few things from the hardware store and because I wanted a tapered shaft I used an old paintbrush instead of a dowel.

I chose this finial because it had a very nice point that I thought would "spin" well.  I cut the ferrule/brush part away leaving just the wooden handle. My plan was for the wooden bead and wood glue to allow the finial and shaft to connect and bond together. I also made some with extra weight by adding a washer. and of course, played with adding colour to the wood as well.

To make the support bowl, I picked up a Danish drawer pull that has a very nice concave form. I wanted the "bowl" to have a flat base so a couple of small wooden toy wheels completed the assembly.

I gave everything several coats of varnish with some sanding in between to give the spindle a lovely sheen and very smooth feel.

These may not spin as long as some of the professionally wood turned beauties, but they work quite well and are allowing me to learn how to spin supported.

I am really enjoying spinning this way as it is even more portable than a drop spindle. Rather than having my arm up and out as I need to with the drop spindle, I can spin seated with the bowl in my lap.....everything is close to the body.....meaning I can spin for longer periods of time and just about anywhere I like.

Knitting and Math

I recently ordered a sweater kit from Craftsy, I have in the past, purchased several classes and was curious about the physical products they offer. There was a promotion that gave 50% off some of the kits so it was an excellent time to give it a try.

Part of that promotion provided a 1 month free trial of Bluprint..... now I must admit that having the month long access to all classes with Bluprint I am taking advantage by checking out classes I may have not done otherwise.

In one of the classes, Wear What You Knit, Perfect Sweater Fit & Style with instructor Sally Melville, I learned a nifty trick for re-gauging a knitting pattern. If you are like me, you often see a sweater pattern that you would like to knit but either don't have ( or don't like) the size of yarn called for. A simple math formula can be used to "regauge" the pattern so that you can knit it using the yarn you want..... how excellent is that?!!....I mean....Whoa! you can do this? I could not wait to test this out, I needed  to see if the math would actually work for me.

I chose to use the math from the Sally Melville class to try knitting a sweater from the class Choose Your Own Sweater Adventure with Eunny Jang. The sweaters in this class called for a chunky yarn with a gauge of 12 stitches over 4". Personally, I do not like to wear or work with heavier yarns, I much prefer to knit with finer yarns.  The yarn I wanted to use is giving me 22 stitches over 4" and even with a lace pattern the math is working and the sweater is coming along great. I love that in this class you can knit so many variations of the pattern(s) provided

trouble is I now have 2 sweaters on the go  :-)

in addition to those classes I have also taken a number of classes about spinning and dyeing yarn and while I do not have a wheel, I find that I am able to apply much of what I am learning to the spinning I am doing on my drop spindles....as for the dyeing, well I am wanting to venture into dyeing my own fibre so you will likely see future posts on those experiments.

Here is a look at the fibre I have been spinning, the spindle on the left holds my spun singles, the spindle on the right contains the yarn as it has been chained plied (also referred to as Navajo plying)

and finally the finished yarn

here is a quick clip of me using my drop spindle

I have a few other things on the go as well so I hope to be back before too, too, long with another post

Building a Drop Spindle.....some assembly required

This past summer I spent some time learning to "spin". Not only did I want to spin my own yarn, but I also wanted to make my own spindles. I stuck with the k.i.s.s principle and kept it simple.

What I did not already have on hand only took a trip to the hardware store, where I was able to pick up some wooden wheels, beads and dowels.
Now, they don't need to be pretty to function.....but heck, why not make them nice to look at too! I decided to try colouring them, wanting the beauty of the wood grain show through, but not wanting to go buy several cans of wood stain (would have been expensive and wasteful) I found that my transparent textile paint worked just fine. I used Seta-Colour transparent paints thinned with water.

Once the parts were dry, the spindles were assembled and a couple of coats of varnish were applied. I pre drilled a tiny hole to make it easy to screw the cup hook in the center of the dowel. In order to get a nice tapered end, I just used a pencil sharpener.  Told ya I kept it simple.

Not only do my spindles work great, they are a little less boring to look at now.

I find it interesting that a few bits of wood and a cup hook can transform a pretty pile of fluffy fibres (this is a Merino and Tencel 50/50 mixture) to a beautiful finished yarn ready for my needles.

Fluffy Fibre......to Knitted Stitches

I am still working out how to spin on my DIY drop spindle.
I began with that 3.5 oz braid of dyed roving that I purchased from a local vendor....after reading tutorials and watching youtube videos, I gave it a shot.....I showed my first "test" subject in an earlier post (here), today I thought I share the process from start to finish.

In order to create plied yarn, I would need 2 balls/bobbins/skiens of spun roving. I broke off 2 equal (roughly) sized amounts of roving and began spinning......once I finished each chunk (my spindle was reasonably full)  I would need to take it off, keep the 2 separate....then find a way to ply (twist) them together to make my yarn.

spun single in progress.

So I decided to make myself what is referred to as a Lazy Kate (or maybe just a "Kate"?)
I happened to have these vintage bobbins on hand (they were simply decorative with my sewing collectibles) once emptied, they would be perfect.

I gathered some supplies.....a sturdy box (gift box from the dollar store) a few knitting needles from my stash of many many duplicate needles (knitters out there know about that LOL!) and some binder clips

 I wound the "singles" off the spindle onto each bobbin

I attached binder clips to an extra knitting needle as guides to keep the fibre from getting all tangled

The spun fibre glided off the bobbins quite smoothly as I plied them together (back onto the spindle.)
Once the yarn was "plied" the next step would be to "set the twist" and to do this I would need something I could wind the yarn onto that would keep some tension and allow me to immerse it all in a warm bath......so I needed to make what is called a "Niddy Noddy"
I went to the hardware store and purchased some PVC pipe 1/2".....2 T connectors and 4 end caps.
note: the grey PVC is found in the electrical dept and is almost half the price of the white PVC found in the plumbing dept)

Because the yarn will wrap around 4 times for each pass.....my center pipe measurement at 12" will give me a 4' long skein. The bonus is that this can be taken apart, laid flat and if I wish, I can create different lengths of skeins by changing the center pipe length

The image below shows the yarn wound on the niddy noddy, along with the resulting skein of plied yarn.

Next I wanted to see if I could set the twist on a single ply. I am so pleased with how it turned out!
how amazing to be able to take fluff

and turn it into yarn with some pretty basic tools, this is a swatch I knit with my single ply yarn, to give you an idea...it was knit on size US 0 needles

This is a slow process, but it is so gratifying. I have found it so relaxing...and when I spin, I seem to loose track of time.

I have to tell you a story.....when I purchased this roving at a local craft/art show, I had asked the vendor how much yarn I should expect to yield from this particular braid. Her answer was that it depended on how thick or thin I would spin it. (okay that makes complete sense) so I replied as an example DK weight??? Well...a customer standing at the same booth, rolled her eyes and basically made a pffffftttt sound....turned to  me and said (insert condescending tone)...."oh...if you are just learning to use a drop spindle you WON'T be spinning anything THAT thin!"  uh .....yeah.... thanks for the encouragement.....perhaps she was trying to be helpful.....but her tone and body language said otherwise.
So as you know, I do LOVE a challenge......don't ever tell me what I can NOT do! But that is me.....someone else might have been so discouraged by that remark that they may have not tried at all and miss out on the of joy this art.

Learning to Spin

I seem to have this thing about trying new (to me) ways of playing with fibre and have wanted to try my hand at spinning for some time now.  This past winter, I created my own DIY drop spindle that would allow me to "ply" reclaimed yarns and so was able to get a feel for working with it, but still had not actually tried to spin my own yarn.
When I saw this particular batch of dyed roving, I knew the time was right to take up the challenge. As I mentioned in my previous post, I spent a lot of time watching a variety of You Tube videos and reading many tutorials before diving in. I did not expect to be perfect first time out of the gate. I am aware that the nature of hand spinning on a drop spindle means there will always be some inconsistencies, but I think that is also what makes it so intriguing.

I am taking it slow, methodically pre-drafting the roving, getting a feel for how to manipulate those delicate fibres. At this stage, I am using what is known as the "Park and Draft" method

.

I am trying to spin a fairly fine strand......but at the same time, something I can keep as consistent as possible.

I spun the roving clockwise and once I had enough built up on the spindle to try the next step in the process, I split what I had into 2 little balls and set about to ply them together.

and plied counter-clockwise  (to take the photo, I "parked" the spindle in a glass flower frog) and to keep the little balls from tangling together, I placed each of them in their own glass jar.

I do not have special tools for any of this, so I set the twist by wrapping the yarn around a flexible thin sheet of plastic ( it was originally the cover from a document folder ) and placed it to soak in warm water for a few minutes. Once the excess water was squeezed out, the little hank was hung and left to dry.

It may not be perfect.....but I am thrilled with the result of my first spin experiment.

To give an idea of the size or "weight" of this yarn....I am getting 14 wraps per inch.

Because I am learning as I go, I decided to work through all of the steps of the process on a small scale, so that I now feel I have basic understanding of the mechanics involved and am ready to try spinning a full skein.  
Even though I don't have fancy tools, I believe using a quality roving makes a huge difference. This particular roving is 70% Merino wool 30% Silk and was purchased locally from Debbie Jamieson Owner/Dyer  of  The Loving Path Fibre Arts, you can find her on Etsy and Facebook

A Little of This and a Little of That

What have I been up to?  well..............lets see
Got this gorgeous roving last week.......I am very aware that learning to spin on my drop spindle will take patience and practice, but I have been watching lots of tutorials on You Tube, I think I am just about ready to give it a try.

I am still hand stitching my big quilt (although I must admit it is not receiving as much attention these days) but I have made it all the way to the outer border. If you don't recall this stash busting quilt, you can see earlier posts here and here

What I have been doing, is spending lots of time drawing on my iPad. I especially enjoy being able to sit out on my deck while drawing....the breeze can't blow my drawings away.
I was recently asked to share my process for creating Mandalas (like the ones shown below) using my iPad mini2, Concepts and my new Bamboo Sketch stylus by Wacom

if you are interested in taking a look, you can find the online article here, even if you don't want to "read" the technical stuff, there is plenty of eye candy and some fun to watch, quick little video clips.
A special thank you to  Erica Christensen for her work on this piece (she makes me sound like I almost know what I am talking about)

Oh, I even used the app and stylus to remove and replace the original background of the bio photo, now it appears that I am standing in front of one of my Mandala quilts.  :-)

Spin and Ply

My experimenting with reclaimed yarn continues.  After deconstructing this lambswool sweater, I found that the yarn was extremely fine.

SO.......I decided to create a drop spindle that would allow me to "ply" the yarns together

A few simple bits from the hardware store came together to form a surprisingly effective spindle.

the yarn plied on the spindle is shown on the left and to the right, is a purchased sock yarn, as you can see they look very close to the same weight.  They knit up well together.

below, you can see the single ply as it came off the sweater, along side the yarn that had been plied on the drop spindle in the process of being knit

I also have a some reclaimed silk on the go.....it is being plied and dyed and turning out wonderfully