Yarn Addiction (by The Woolpack)

What’s so addictive about yarn? Everything – With so many choices and uses, it’s the perfect collectible.

Yarns today are being made from so many fibers-natural and synthetic.  Natural fibers include sheep, llama, goats, buffalo, alpaca, angora, musk ox, possum, cotton, silk, corn, soy, bamboo, and milk fibers.

Our yarn supply is a truly global economy:  Italy, Australia, South America, Turkey, China, USA.  Many US distributors work with small cooperatives in developing countries helping regions to become self-sustaining. 

Today’s synthetic fibers like  modal, viscose, tencel, courtelle,  nylon, and acrylic are spun using high tech spinning equipment to produce yarns far removed from the acrylic yarns of the 50’s and 60’s.  Many acrylics feel like natural fibers and are wonderful to knit with.

Hand spinners are turning out artful yarns in small quantities and hand dyers produce rich, deep or delicate colors using many natural fibers as their canvas.

You can knit, crochet, weave, felt, embellish and craft with yarns.  You can put them in a basket like a bouquet of flowers and just admire them. 

Yarns are spun finer than human hair and as thick as your finger.  Yarns can be a single strand or ply and many plies twisted together.  Sometime they are even constructed of plies of plies twisted clockwise and counterclockwise (for a Z twist or an S twist). Some are smooth while others are highly textured.

You can make a collection of yarn from a particular designer, fiber, color, gauge, or even collect yarns as a souvenir from your travels.  You can swap yarn like trading cards, buy on ebay and yard sales or make donations to worthy causes.

People buy yarn who have no earthly idea what they are going to do with it, some don’t even knit or crochet.  They are seduced by the color, the feel.  It might remind them of a place or a person.  The texture might be soothing and calming to the touch.  The colors may brighten your spirits.  You just know that if you don’t buy this yarn, it may not be there the next visit.  That if you don’t buy this yarn, you will think about it for days.  That life is full of regrets and this shouldn’t be one of them.

Introduction to Spinning, Part 2 (video)

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.

Introduction to Spinning, Part 1 (video)

If you’re interested in spinning your own yarn, this video provides you with all the information you need to get started. Park and draft with a drop spindle with this tutorial!

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

Machine Knitting Lesson (video)

Lion Brand’s Nili demonstrates the basics of the LK-150 knitting machine with LB 1878 yarn. Michelle of Craft Zine joins her in the Lion Brand Yarn Studio and tries her hand at the machine as well.

« Previous Page