Relax and Enjoy the Spin! (by fireflysummer)

Hi All,

I have been a knitter & crocheter for about 32 years now, taught like most, by my grandmother when I was a child.  I love anything craft related and now my new passion is fibre. Spinning and dyeing my own yarn to use for projects is so satisfying.  I live on the east coast of Australia. I am a nurse by trade but have decided to be a stay at home mum to nurture my family while they grow.   I had decided that I wanted to spin my own yarn, but due to a lack of fundage, my options were limited.

I had heard about a craft Exhibition that was on at my local community centre and that the local weaving and spinning group would be there demonstrating. So I went along to have a look.  I chatted with the ladies while they spun away with such ease and expressed my wish to one day have my own spinning wheel. One of the ladies took me by the hand and said “there is a wheel inside for sale, it’s a great buy”.  Well…. I came home with a sheepish look on my face and said to my DH, “Darling, guess what I just bought”.

I got my first wheel. A traditional Ashford 1982, a Lazy Kate, 9 bobbins, a pair of hand carders, some Chinook and a few craft books all for AU$100. A real bargain. Apart from needing a new string and a little oil she is in perfect condition.  Ok. Now that I had my wheel I needed to learn how to use it. While I was at the Craft exhibition I had grabbed a flyer for the Spinning and Weaving groups’ Annual Exhibition and fashion parade that was about 6 weeks away.

So I grabbed all the books I could find on ebay that fit my very very slim budget and read and read. All the time counting the days until the groups exhibition and meeting. I was so eager to join the group and start absorbing information from a collective knowledge of over 500 years on spinning. 

It wasn’t to be. I came home with my hopes of joining quite squished because there was a waiting list of 9 people already waiting to join the group.  What was I to do.  The books covered a lot, but there were a lot of grey areas and some things were not covered at all. Being a visual person I learn much better from watching, so I decided to consult the “Oracle” (Internet) in particular YouTube (www.youtube.com).  YouTube is a massive craft education resource. Wow.  I did have to filter through many videos that were not very good to find the gems.

Firstly I found Sue Macniven’s (http://www.youtube.com/user/chicksinrubber) video that explained all the different parts of the spinning wheel.  Then I came across the New Voyage Videos (http://www.youtube.com/user/NewVoyagerVideo). Tim has a three part series on spinning wheel maintenance, where I learnt how to take care of my wheel and keep it running at it’s best.  With the technical stuff on board I headed back to Sue’s videos to learn about carding, combing and some spinning basics. Sue is a great teacher to listen too, she explains things very clearly and thoroughly.  

Another video maker that I found and really enjoyed was Rexenne (http://www.youtube.com/user/rexenne). This lady has a very, in her own words “dorky” approach. I love watching these videos, especially if I have a had a crappy day. Rexenne’s approach is light and heaps of fun and a little crazy, which I can relate to well.  Rexenne taught me probably the most important lesson so far in my learning experience. Relax and enjoy, everything does not need to be perfect.

I really loved the fact that if I needed to watch a video 200 times for it to sink in, I was the only one that knew it. I was able to feel really comfortable in my own home, mind you my kids did tell me I was a sight, set up in front of the computer with the spinning wheel doing as I watched. But hey, it really worked.  Perfection will come with practice.  I was still a little stressed about getting my yarn to be a perfect 5ply or what ever ply I wanted. Then I realised that my knobbly, loopy, lumpy yarn resembled the “fancy fibres” being sold in yarn stores.  It was then I really relaxed and started enjoying the whole process.  

The moral of the story is do not be hard on your self and try for perfection with your first yarn, enjoy it. Be open to learning via different methods. Explore the Internet, there are so many talented people out there to learn from.  We have school holidays here Down Under, and I have spent the first week of the holidays with my 3 kiddlies Master 11, Miss 6 and Miss 4 along with my niece Miss 8 dyeing mohair the kid safe way.  I am writing an article to follow this one with pictures and advice on dyeing yarn. So keep your eyes peeled.

Spinning Yarn on a Drop Spindle – Tutorial (video)

Hello Naughty Knitterz! Here you’ll see how to make yarn on a top whorl drop spindle. Megan shows starting a leader yarn, the park method, the drop method, and connecting more fiber.

 

Types of Knitting Yarn (video)

Hello… I am Mr Yarn

Hello…

I am Mr YARN. Now, you’re probably wondering who I am, and why I am here in this BIG wide world of ours… Well, I am the most charismatic ball of yarn you will ever come across. Yes, that’s right- or so my owner/creator tells me.

My life began all the way back in the year 2000, the Millennium, where I started of as an iddy biddy little bouncy ball (multi-coloured with a hint of white smudging to be precise). One day, my owner decided to wrap me up in some fresh woollen YARN and since then, my life has been an inner-twined adventure of knitty goodness. Every year I accumulate more and more colourful layers of yarn, causing me to grow and grow.

I guess I’m not like other balls of yarn. Unlike their loose, fluffy ovular quality, I am a triumphant round shape, with a structure so strong and unyielding I could probably crush an ant (if I had the pleasure to roll out my owner’s front door). My coloured woollen layers will often change, depending on my mood. This summer, I felt so happy and sunnified that my owner gave me a bright yellow cosy coating, allowing me to bloom upon my bedroom shelf.

It was this year I decided to cast off my curiosity and try and find other balls of yarn like my kind through joining Twitter. I began my Twitter adventure at a circumference of 23cm, weighing a challenging 2.2kg (babies can sometimes weigh this much I’ll have you know) consisting of pure sheep wool – apart from my fragile little bouncy ball heart of course. With over 20 different effervescent colours to my past I can even BOUNCE – this has to be done carefully though as sometimes my yarn comes loose. Waw. So, more importantly, my owner didn’t make me for knitting. Oh no, he made me for ball related pleasure as well as a great shelf ornament. Sometimes I do worry he is just building me up for one great big jumper.

You see, although life sounds great for me, I feel there is so much more to see and learn. Like sheep… I have heard all sorts of wonderful and magnificent stories about those field galloping, wool donating animals. I want to explore, venture out into the open and roll away from my tungsten lit bedroom shelf. What wondrous obstacles lie ahead of me? How will I survive? Are there other kinds like me, roaming our earth, evolving from thread to thread, rolling down roads rebelling against their knittable purpose of life?

I will do this! I WILL succeed in my mission! And for every ant I squish, I will document my journey along the way. See more of me at www.twitter.com/mryarn where you can suggest great adventures for me to embark upon, have control over what colour I shall be next, help me get BIG and ROUND and be part of fulfilling my dreams to explore the world. P.s. If you follow me, I will follow you. Tee Hee.

Lots of yielding yarn love

 

Mr Yarn

Yarn: It does matter

I hadn’t been at it that long but I wanted to graduate from knitting simple projects to knitting something larger. I learned by knitting scarves.  Now that I’ve done a dozen of them, I find myself wanting to do a bigger project.  Nothing too complicated but something larger.  How about an afghan?  That might be nice. Not too hard but certainly bigger than a scarf. It’s also something I could make good use of during a cold evening.

 

Ok, I’ll knit an afghan. What do I need to do first?  First I’ll find a pattern for my project.  A friend from my knitting class gave me a pattern she had used.  She knitted an afghan as a birthday present for one of her family members.  My friend also told me she was pleased with how it turned out.

 

The pattern tells me everything I need to know. It tells me the needles I should use.  It tells me what type of yarn to use. The pattern also tells me the amount of yarn I’m going to need. It tells me my afghan project requires 42 ounces of yarn.  So, I need to buy 7 skeins or so of yarn.  Now being frugal, some might to say downright cheap, I shopped for yarn to fit the budget I set.  I found yarn at a wide variety of prices. Thinking cheap yarn would work as well as more expensive yarn, I chose for the lower priced stuff.

 

I finished the afghan. It looked great. The first time I used the afghan it seemed ok but I wasn’t totally satisfied with was how it felt.  It wasn’t as soft as I thought it should be.  I quickly realized that was due to the less expensive yarn I used. Knitting is very rewarding but it can be an expensive hobby. Remember, what you knit will only be as nice as the yarn you use. Don’t skimp on what’s important.  Yarn is a critical component of any knitting project.