Getting Started with Spinning

by Allena Jackson

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You’re almost ready to spin with your new CD spindle, but first you will need some fiber, and you will also need to properly prepare it.  We are going to begin with commercially prepared fibers, and there is a list of places to purchase them at the end of the article.   

We will start spinning using roving.  Roving is a continuous rope of carded fibers that are ready to spin, you may want to break off pieces about 12 inches long.   

The roving is often too large to work with for a beginner, so take your roving and carefully split it down the middle to form two strips instead of one.  You can do this again with each half to make four pieces or more.

Try for a size that is somewhere around the size of your little finger.  This is called pre-drafting, and it will let you concentrate on getting a good twist in your yarn without worrying about the thickness of the yarn.  Once you become accustomed to spinning, you will learn to regulate the thickness of the yarn while you spin - this is called drafting.

This is a great time to talk about what types of wool to begin with.  Most people have heard of Merino wool.  Spinners LOVE Merino, and it is wonderful wool, but it is not the easiest to spin for beginners.  I always recommend good quality Shetland roving, but Blue Faced Leicester, Border Leicester, Rambouillet, Romney, or any of the medium length wool breeds are also good.  My favorites are Shetland, Cotswold, Wensleydale, and Blue Faced Leicester.  You can purchase these in many places, and a small amount to get started with is not that expensive.  Look at the breed registries and check the members list for local suppliers, also contact a local spinning guild, or yarn shop.  You can spin, wools, mohair, synthetics, metallic, silk, soy silk, bamboo, alpaca, llama, angora and even yak fiber... The list goes on and on. You can shop online and get some really wonderful products delivered to your door.

The first thing you will need to master is twist.  Twist refers to how many times the spindle turned in a given distance on the yarn, usually one inch.  So if you spin the spindle 6 times for each inch of yarn, you get a tpi (twists per inch) of 6.  Twist can be very challenging to control for a beginner.  You want to aim for yarn that doesn't easily pull apart, but isn't so twisted that it wants to knot up and look like a big mess. 

This is hard at first, because the thin areas will absorb more twist than the thicker places.  As long as your thicker areas are not coming apart you should have enough twist, and needn't worry about the thin areas because they will have more twist than the thicker places.  In the beginning, you want to get control of the twist rate, try not to worry about the yarn being big and thick in places, and tiny and thin in others.  Just try to keep the twist under control.

Above is an example of a good twist on the yarn.  Notice the thick and thin areas?  They will knit up and lend a beautiful texture to the finished product so don't worry about that.  This is what most beginners will make for the first few hundred yards, it is very soft and lovely when worked up so enjoy spinning and avoid frustration by accepting that your yarn will look like this for a while and THAT IS OK!!!

Continued...

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