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Every spinner's first yarn is lumpy. Mine was lumpy enough that my husband asked if it was
supposed to be rope. Keep it anyway. You'll never make that yarn again, and someday you'll miss
it. Here is how we teach beginners in the guild. It reads harder than it is; ten minutes with
someone showing you is worth this whole page, so come to a spin-in or to Candy Drayton's class
on October 23 and 30.
Start with good wool
Begin with four ounces of clean, carded roving from a medium wool. Corriedale is wonderful for
beginners. It's a New Zealand breed with a soft, springy, well-crimped fleece that practically
spins itself. Romney, my other breed, has a longer, more lustrous staple and is lovely for
experienced hands, but beginners do better with something shorter. Save the silk and the angora
for later. And save the raw fleece too: learning to wash and card is a separate adventure.
On a drop spindle
| 1 | The spindle. A drop spindle is a stick with a weight, the whorl, on it. A top-whorl spindle has the whorl near the top and a hook; a bottom-whorl has it near the bottom. Either works. For a first spindle, get one that weighs one to two ounces and spins a good long time when you flick it. |
| 2 | The leader. Tie about eighteen inches of ordinary wool yarn to the shaft and take it up through the hook (or around the shaft and up with a half hitch at the top, on a bottom-whorl). |
| 3 | Join. Fluff out the end of the leader and the end of your roving and overlap them a few inches. Pinch them together. |
| 4 | Spin, then park. Give the spindle a clockwise twirl and let the twist build up in the leader, keeping it below your pinch. Before it slows down and starts turning back the other way, stop it and tuck it between your knees. That's "park and draft," and it's how everyone should start. |
| 5 | Draft. With the spindle parked, use your back hand to gently pull fibers out of the roving, thinning a few inches of it. That's drafting. Then let go with the front hand and let the twist run up into the thinned part. That's yarn! |
| 6 | Wind on. When the spindle is near the floor, unhook the yarn and wind it onto the shaft above the whorl (or below it, on a bottom-whorl), leaving enough to go back up through the hook. Then do it all again. And again. Soon you'll draft while it spins, and you won't need to park at all. |
On a wheel
A wheel does the twirling for you, so both hands are free to draft. The treadle turns the big
drive wheel, the drive band turns the flyer and the bobbin, and the yarn goes in through the
orifice, around the hooks on the flyer arms, and onto the bobbin.
- Treadle first, with no wool at all. Practice until you can make the wheel go slowly and
steadily clockwise and keep it going, and stop it, and start it again without it reversing. Do this
for a few days, a few minutes at a time, while you watch the news. It's the best thing you can do.
- Tie on a leader to the bobbin, run it over the hooks and out through the orifice with a
hook, and join your roving to it the same way as on the spindle.
- Treadle and draft. The front hand pinches and keeps the twist from running into the
roving; the back hand draws the fibers out. Slide the front hand back along the drafted fibers,
let the twist follow, and let the wheel draw the yarn in.
- Adjust the tension. If the yarn yanks out of your hands, loosen the brake. If it won't
wind on, tighten it a hair. A quarter turn of the knob makes a big difference.
Plying and finishing
A single strand straight off the spindle or bobbin is called a single, and it wants to twist back
on itself. To make a balanced yarn, spin two bobbins of singles, set them on a lazy kate, and spin
them together the opposite way, counterclockwise. That's plying. Then wind the yarn on a
niddy-noddy to make a skein, tie it loosely in four places, and soak it in warm water with a drop
of dish soap. Rinse in water the same temperature (changing temperature suddenly can felt it),
roll it in a towel, and hang it to dry with a light weight on it. Now it's yarn.
A Spinner's and Weaver's Glossary
| Fleece | The whole coat of wool shorn from one sheep, usually in one piece. A good one is clean, sound and not full of hay. |
| Skirting | Spreading out a fleece and pulling off the dirty, matted, short or stained edges (the belly, the legs, the back end) before washing. |
| Carding | Brushing clean wool between two hand cards (paddles covered with fine wire teeth) or through a drum carder, to open up the locks and line up the fibers for spinning. |
| Rolag | A loose, airy roll of wool made by rolling the carded fiber off hand cards. Spun from the end, it makes a light, warm woolen yarn. |
| Roving | A long, continuous rope of carded fiber, ready to spin. Most beginners start with it. |
| Drafting | Drawing the fibers out and thinning them before the twist gets into them. How you draft decides how thick your yarn is. |
| Ply | To twist two or more singles together, in the opposite direction from the way they were spun. Also each strand in a yarn: a two-ply, a three-ply. |
| Niddy-noddy | A wooden tool shaped like a capital I with its two crossbars turned at right angles to each other. You wind yarn around its ends to make a skein. Best name of any tool there is. |
| Skein | A loose loop of yarn wound off the niddy-noddy and tied, for washing, dyeing, storing or selling. |
| Warp | The lengthwise threads stretched tight on the loom before weaving begins. Warp yarn needs to be strong. |
| Weft | The crosswise yarn the weaver passes over and under the warp, usually wound on a bobbin in a shuttle. |
| Heddle | On a floor loom, a wire or string with an eye in the middle. Each warp thread goes through one, and the heddles hang on harnesses that lift to open a space (the shed) for the weft. A rigid-heddle loom has one plastic or wooden heddle with slots and holes instead. |
| Sett | How closely the warp is spaced, counted in ends per inch. Too close and the cloth is stiff as a board; too far apart and it's a fishnet. |
| Lazy kate | A little rack that holds full bobbins while you ply from them. |
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