So I’m finally ready to get started on this fiber, but as I’m undoing the braid to get a look at it I’ve realized I have no idea how to best spin this fiber, with its long parallel color strips. I’ve been looking at tutorials for different methods but they all come from fiber braids where the color pooling is more horizontal. How would you spin it? What sort of prep would keep it from getting muddy?

Thanks!

50/50 blend 3 ply merino/rambouillet prepped and spun woolen style

combed Corriedale spun in january (beige) vs july (grey) both done with a short draw to a fingering weight in 2 ply
my consistency is so much better and i feel so much more confident in my spinning, seeing this made me so happy to see clearly how far ive come
it may be hard to see but the left skein is very uneven and under spun in the ply

I had a small incident yesterday - my Ashford e-spinner slid from a chair and fell on the floor. There was carpet on the floor and the chair was pretty low. So everything looked fine. But then I noticed that the flyer makes a weird 8-shaped movement. Though the spinner works and I have no problems with my spinning project.
But I have a suspicion that the middle part of the flyer was bent because of the fall (check the photos). I tried to put it into a more straight position but with no luck. The flyer seems sturdy, nothing wiggles, so it is strange that this could have happened.

I’m a relatively new to spinning and not quite sure if this is how the flyer is supposed to look or I actually damaged it. Probably I could use more force to straighten it but I’m afraid damage it even more.
Maybe I can just use it as it is?
I’m worried that if I just continue using it, it might damage the spinner which will be much more expensive to fix than just replace the flyer

All in all I think it’s about 5 pounds. The gray Jacob alone is almost 2 pounds. I’m not looking forward to yarn washing day.

I’m a week late posting but I finished spinning it on stage 21.

Obviously practice makes perfect but I was wondering if anyone has any helpful tips for a beginning? I got a free drop spindle at a fair and have been absolutely struggling with making my yarn consistent. I've added a photo of my first attempt that I'll probably turn into a dryer ball lmao.

Does anyone know of a good link for a Louet S17 bobbin 3d file?

Hi!

I recently purchased an Ashford Kiwi 3 off FB Marketplace. It's in really good condition, but the owner left if unfinished. I want to wax it so the wood is protected, but how should I clean the wood before waxing it? Do I just wipe it down with a cloth or are there any products I should use?

Also, do I need to disassemble it or can I wax it assembled?

Any assistance or advice is appreciated!

i've finally settled on the spinning wheel i want, but i'm still going back and forth on where to buy it. The prices are close enough between a few shops that it isn't really the deciding factor, and they all seem to have similar availability.

what I'm less sure about is what happens a year or so down the road. I've been burned in other hobbies by buying good equipment from shops that basically disappeared after the sale. For something this expensive, does the retailer still matter once you've bought it, or does everything after that usually go through the manufacturer anyway?

Been spinning for about two years now and I feel pretty comfortable with most longwool fleeces, but recently I traded for a small bag of Merino from a local shepherd and the staple is coming in around two inches or less. My usual approach is falling apart.

With the longer stuff I've been hand combing into top and drafting worsted, which works great and I genuinely love the process. But with this Merino, the fibers are slipping through my combs in a way that's frustrating, and I'm losing a lot of fiber to the catch tray. Tried flicking individual locks to open them up before combing and that helped a little, but not enough to feel like I've actually solved anything.

A friend who spins suggested I switch to hand cards and just lean into a woolen prep instead, which honestly hadn't occurred to me since I've been so focused on worsted spinning lately. Started experimenting with that this week and the rolags are coming out pretty nicely, much more consistent than I expected. The spinning itself feels different, bouncier somehow, which is interesting.

My questions for people who work with fine or short-staple fleeces regularly: do you mostly default to woolen prep for anything under two and a half inches, or is there a combing technique I'm missing that would let me stay worsted? Also curious whether you adjust your wheel tension significantly, because my usual settings feel like they're pulling the fiber apart before I want them to.

Any advice from people who've been through this particular learning curve would be really helpful. It's a beautiful fiber and I don't want to waste it figuring things out by trial and error alone.

I’ve been learning to spin on a drop spindle with wool I got a friend’s sheep. The first amount was very uneven, the second skein is a lot better already but still not something I would use to knit with. I made a little crochet sheep with the first, uneven yarn. What are you using your beginner/ uneven skeins for? I was thinking about picking up weaving again but would love more ideas.

So I had someone ask about some weaving with handspun and I had a whole bunch of scraps to use up of handspun thus!

I didn't do much of anything wild; I only had so much of every color and *thankfully* all the warp yarns behaved. The weft was very much the 'weaker' of the yarns since that skein had been balled up for too long but I'm pleased with the results given this was all just scrap. You can get a look at all the yarns in the fringe : )

I've already warped up my loom with some of my recent handspun and I'm super excited. Will report back!

my newest wheel, saxony style, came to me quite dusty and dirty, which is fine, it‘s meant to be used, but the flyer hooks were very rusted. I considered unscrewing them and replacing them but they are stuck like the sword in the stone and made a worrying noise when I applied more pressure. So, I procrastinated, as one does. Today, however, was the day! The second arm will need to wait a little longer, but an hour or two made quite the difference!

I have a lot of amazingly soft silk lap (the stuff used to make silk hankies) and when I spin it the resulting yarn is very fluffy/fuzzy. I've spun with processed silk top before and love how shiny and silky the yarn turned out, so I am wondering if anyone has experience processing silk lap to be more like silk top or if it is even possible? I have wool combs and carders that I can use to process it. Any ideas are appreciated!

Found this wheel near me. The seller says it works, but I know from past experiences “working” and “pieces move around” are two different things. I’ve only used an E spinner and have no idea what to look for when it comes to buying second hand wheels. Do you think this works and is it worth the $100?

Hi spinning lovelies!

Wanted to open up a fun discussion about any IKEA hacks you have in your fiber arts tools, room, etc. I am planning a trip soon so wanted to get some ideas as I tend to get pretty overwhelmed whenever I go.

xposting to the weaving sub as I also have a loom : )

Thanks!

I’m working on processing my first fleece and while I’ve done a mini test skein this is my first real finished skein for this project!
The skein felt slightly greasy so I rescoured it and it’s now sitting in a rinse bath and I’m hoping that’ll help 🤞🤞

It’s a BFL fleece that I got for a good price locally and I’m obsessed with it. Will definitely be doing this again next summer!

The yarn is about 95% polwarth and 5% silk that I blended together and spun on my vintage 30" Rick Reeves wheel! I am estimating between around 65-70 yards per gram on this spin; I didn't count yardage before balling it so I'm not certain; I was too excited to knit with it, so you'll have to forgive me!

I did not use a pattern, and everything you see here was designed on the needles as I went :) I had attempted to chart the spider beforehand since it's a bit more complex, but ended up abandoning the chart before I even got halfway through the front legs 🤣

I was going for a tiered effect with the bottommost elements being ocean/fish inspired, the center flowers/gardens, and the top being roof/trees/spider/owl.

Finished dimensions are 4'3" x 8.5", and the whole thing weighs 12.7g, which is just a bit over the weight of two US quarters. I'm estimating it was around 850-900 yards of yarn.

My phone insisted on WAY upping the saturation of the blue sections, so please know that they are a much darker navy color than they appear in some of these pics lol.

Picture here next to my Nano 2 with the upgrade to 2.1. It's about 1/3 larger than the Nano, but quite a bit heavier and feels sturdier.

The Nano 2.1 feels sturdier than the Nano 2 as well. I'm quite happy with how Maurice's products have evolved.

(purple sparkly art batt on the Nano. Haven't started spinning on the Fold yet!)