So without further ado, here is the Prelude!
Oh my! Things are going so much faster. In my first week, I spun through 12 ounces of fiber. It took me almost 6 months to get through that with my spindle, though I wasn't spinning as often with the spindle.
To get things started on my wheel, I sent two skeins of scrap yarn through and onto my bobbins. It was really nice. After I had spent a whole two minutes using just the treadle, I knew I needed to do something with my hands, but I knew I wasn't ready for real spinning, enter left over yarn. I started with some thicker cotton, which probably wasn't great, but it was a great chance for me to figure out the Scotch Tension on my wheel. As I said the cotton was probably not the best choice, because the thickness of it made it necessary to have the tension higher than normal, closer to where it would be if you were plying. Though maybe it was good, since it was very clear that my tension was not working in the beginning. Once I got that worked out, i had no problems with the rest of the yarn, or the next skein I sent through.
My husband hates how I measure my crafting time, but it took me three episodes of Doctor Who to put my wheel together, run through my scrap skeins, and start spinning real yarn, so that's about 2 hours and 15-20 minutes (and no the show didn't distract me, as this was about the fifth time I've watched what is loaded on Netflix...I just need to find a way to dye my yarn TARDIS Blue and we will be in business).
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| First skeins on the Wheel! |
I still had quite a bit of single left on one of my bobbins, so I wound it around a bobbin I used for my spindles, and let it sit for a bit.
I worked in batches. I started with some white Norwegian wool. It's a nice long wool that drafts nicely and works well as either a fine or chunky yarn, though a bit too rough for next-to-skin (shall we say NTS) use.
After my two skeins of Norwegian, which took me about 2-3 days between all the other things that go on in a day, I decided that I needed a bit of color. Since I'm still not brave enough for the alpaca, and certainly wasn't then, I grabbed the Jacob.
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| Completely full plying bobbin |
This change gave me a nice chance to really work on my consistency. Initially, I was working on thread thin singles, but I kept having issues when I broke my draft or had to disconnect for some reason. Despite a section being perfectly sound when I spun it, once I lost my tension, all the twist escaped, and my previously spun yarn kept drafting apart when I would try to start up again. I just went back to spinning at my default thickness, but keeping it more consistent, which went pretty well. I had wanted to spin a bit thinner so I could ply more singles together, which I guess I can still do, but as is, I am getting a 2-ply that is just slightly thicker than sock yarn.
I did learn my lesson about sectioning the fiber before spinning, and separated the Jacob into four 2-ounce sections. The bobbin at the left shows 4-ounces spun and plied.
Since then. I have spun the rest of the Norwegian, trying for a chunky, which I plied with a thin making a pretty decent spiral for my first time, as well as plying the dyed Bella Wool I had spun on my spindles, making it a 4 ply.
I can tell I'm getting better, but I need a spinner's control card. It is a small card that has lines of different thicknesses which relate to yarns of different weights.
For right now I am spinning the rest of my Bella Wool, though that does involve "combing" it, though not in the traditional sense. The "combing" is slowing me down quite a bit, so we'll see what gets done before the move at the end of the month...especially considering the Fiber Festival this weekend.
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| Norwegian on the wheel on what I think was day 2 |
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