Spinning Pages

Spinning Information Page

Spinning is the most common way to change fibers (wool, flax, cotton, hemp, silk) into usable yarns, threads and even rope.  While there are other ways of doing this (felting, tanning hides) world wide, spinning is the most common and for most climates the most essential of these skills to learn.

To do basic spinning you need:

A Drop Spindle (to hold, balance and twist the wool) – pretty much a stick with a weight on it.

Fiber to spin on it (wool, flax, cotton, hemp, even dog and cat hair)

Useful To have (and you really want some of these)

Soap for washing dirty fibers in (especially animal fleeces)

Scissors – to trim the nasty bits of fleeces and cut the starter cords and yarns used to tie up finished skeins for washing or dying.

Carding combs (cards, or drum carder) to prepare fibers – Combs are the easy one to make at home, carders both hand carders and drum carders are very difficult.

Homemade Wool combs using bent nails

Already spun cordage for starting yarn on the spindle and for tying up skeins of yarn, before washing and dying.

A collection of drop spindles in various sizes and weights – you can collect and make these over time – but different spindles are useful when you need to make a variety of different yarns.

Knitty-Notty (a simple T square like frame or even a chair back, that lets you wind skeins from your spindle)

Ashford Knitting Noddy

Spinning Wheel – a real must for production spinning, yes the world did without them for about 30,000 years – but they helped revolutionize the last thousand or so.

Weights – small pieces of metal (or even an orange juice bottle full of water) used to hang on wet skeins to keep them under pressure while hanging out to dry.  Old horse tack works really well for this, if  you have any, but any small heavy objects you can put string through will work.

Free Advice and Downloads

The Internet has made learning to spin if your an isolated spinner, so  much easier than it was for me in the 1980′s.

You can get started with these free “How to Spin” fliers from Interweave, your allowed to print out and distribute as long as it is not put up for sale.  I tend to give these away at spinning demonstrations.

Introduction to Spinning (a how to spin print-out)

How to Use a Drop Spindle

Introduction to Using a Spinning Wheel

Washing and Preparing Wool for Spinning

Making a Drop Spindle with an Old Computer CD

How to Build a “Great” Spinning Wheel (Colonial American Wheel)

There is a lot more at the site, but those are some of the basics, the CD drop spindle might be especially useful for those needing cheap or quickly made spindles.  Though there can be problems getting the grommets t make the holes a bit smaller to keep it from sliding off the stick.

Good Basic Books

Here are a few good basic books – you don’t need to buy all of them, but having one or two around can be useful if the Internet is not an option.

A classic book on the subject and can often be found used on E-bay and other places.  While it has only a short chapter on spinning, if you can only get one fiber craft book get this one.  The small loom chapter alone is worth it and the basic spinning guide is short but useful.

A short, to the point and inexpensive paperback from Interweave press.  A very good introduction to spinning without a lot of extra stuff you don’t really need to get started.

Exact opposite of the previous book, an extremely comprehensive book about everything you ever wanted to know (and a lot you never thought of).  A good library reference, and it is on-sale at Interweave right now (click on the picture for the link).  Still expensive, but a good reference for your prepping library – if things get bad your family may thank you later.

Interweave has the tiny “companion” books for nearly ever craft they cover.  Small enough to fit into your spinning basket or yarn bag, collecting all these books over time is a real time saver.  If you have a question, you just flip to the page and the answer is right there.  The knitting and weaving Companions are also highly recommended.