Walsall Wonderland

It’s something I’ve been thinking about doing for a while, but I hope to start to learn this nifty craft in the near future. I’d like to learn to spin my own yarn.

There are a few tools one needs to spin their own yarn, and in today’s post I am going to list a few options. It seems that the most common, and easiest from what I’ve heard, way to learn to spin yarn is with a drop spindle. These can be found all over the net or at your local craft store, but I like the handmade ones found on Etsy. This one here is one I have my eye on, and may purchase, because this idea is now firmly close to my heart as the next means of crafting I’d like to learn. You can take classes to learn with a drop spindle, or you can use instructional DVDs or even YouTube! The other tool you can use to spin yarn is of course, a spinning wheel, but this is much more complicated and not best for beginners but experienced spindle spinners. They are beautiful pieces of machinery, though, I have to admit.

Next you are going to need materials to spin, called ‘roving’. Roving is long bundles of fibres that have been created by carding the fleece, silk, or whatever fibre you’re working with. That basically means brushing it with two big brushes, one on either side, so you are pulling the fibres into rough alignment. Then end result looks something like this for fleecy fibres, and something like this for smoother fibres.

Now, if I were to spin up my own yarn, I would want a project that would showcase the yarn I had used. For instance, I really like this circular shrug at the moment, and there is enough space, and a basic enough pattern, that you could appreciate the yarn used. So here is a link to the Ravelry page where the pattern can be accessed, and hopefully I’ve inspired you out there to start to spin!