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MarsDragon posted:Do you have any fiber you're not really excited about any more? That's what I did when I got my wheel. Just sat there and used up all the fiber I'd bought and later decided I didn't like, or signed up for a club and didn't like that month, or whatever. That's p much what I did. I had a 4oz braid and divided it in two and spun both halves, and now I'm trying to ply and suddenly the wheel hates me. It did just fine spinning the singles, but now the bobbin keeps getting stuck and the pedal won't keep it spinning so I'm spinning it by hand while wrangling the two singles with the other hand and I've fiddled with the tension every which way and NOTHING IS WORKING. It's getting plied and on the bobbin, sort of, but it's frustrating as gently caress. Edit: Noticed partway through that while I was plying it, somehow the winding process was un-plying it. So then I plied the poo poo out of it from there on out and figured out a few tricks to unstick the bobbin, but was still turning the wheel with one hand. I'm going to let it rest on the bobbin and then run it back through to even out the plying and see if the problems were that one bobbin or ccw spinning in general or what. Lordy mercy that was silly. Valdara fucked around with this message at 19:48 on Apr 22, 2016 |
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Apr 22, 2016 16:11
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I finally did some dyeing. Two pounds of Corriedale Cross, which I apparently didn't split evenly, as I ended up with 15 two-and-a-bit oz. braids. I'm trying to fight my hoarding instincts long enough to see if a new LYS wants to sell on commission for me.
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Apr 25, 2016 19:07
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TastesLikeChicken posted:I finally did some dyeing. Omg, that second-from-the-left pink and white one is to die for. Do you sell this stuff or are you holding it for trying to get it into a shop? Because I'm hecka interested in that one. :3 I've been trying to get myself back into spinning and I still can't manage anything other than spin / park / draft, or I spend half .y time chasing the spindle all over the room. I have some questions though that maybe you guys can help me with. First, is the thickness of my yarn. I'm trying to keep it consistent but sometimes I accidentally overdraft and I don't know how to fix it. Does this look ok?  Secondly, the thing I've always struggled with is 'how much twist is too much'. When I was taught, my tutor said that you want the yarn to twirl around itself when you let it have easement, but it shouldn't be wound so tightly that it knots up into a mess. I think I'm close, but not quite at the happy medium.  Do these look right? This is like... The third time I've ever really had a proper go at spinning, so I'm trying to learn good habits.
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Apr 26, 2016 07:10
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Valdara posted:That's p much what I did. I had a 4oz braid and divided it in two and spun both halves, and now I'm trying to ply and suddenly the wheel hates me. It did just fine spinning the singles, but now the bobbin keeps getting stuck and the pedal won't keep it spinning so I'm spinning it by hand while wrangling the two singles with the other hand and I've fiddled with the tension every which way and NOTHING IS WORKING. It's getting plied and on the bobbin, sort of, but it's frustrating as gently caress. Remind me--you need a new drive band and a once-over on the wheel and it'll work itself out from there. Also I need to bring you an oil bottle and show you the oiling points again, it'll help the bobbin stop sticking. Make sure your brake is on the bobbin, too, because that'll make the bobbin actually turn at the correct pace, instead of freeballing around like an idiot baby bobbin. My shop has Schacht looms and wheels on sale this week, so I am going to pretend I didn't hear they were on sale and not spend my entire teaching paycheck. I need another wheel or loom like I need a hole in my head, but at the same time, the Reeves 30" in Cherry is so pretty.
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Apr 26, 2016 13:53
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That drat Satyr posted:Omg, that second-from-the-left pink and white one is to die for. Do you sell this stuff or are you holding it for trying to get it into a shop? Because I'm hecka interested in that one. :3 Both of them look fine for a newbie. If you overdraft you can fix it by untwisting the overdrafted bit with your fingers and redrafting it a bit - not too much, you don't want to pull it all the way apart - but enough to get it to the thickness you want. Too thick yarn is much easier to fix than too thin yarn. Your plyback test also looks about normal. If you want to get perfectly even plybacks you have to carefully bring the two sides together while keeping them under some tension so they don't turn into a mess. If you just bring your hands together you usually get what you have there because the yarn doesn't give a gently caress. If you want less twist then you have to spin with less twist or let the spindle backspn for a bit, and spinning with less twist has it's own problems. Ultimately, it's all about practice, practice, practice. Everyone makes lumpy yarn their first time. Everyone makes yarn that's overtwisted or undertwisted or badly plied or whatever. Just keep at it. I started off in the same place as you, and five years later I can spin a pretty good yarn. It's all about the practice and muscle memory.
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Apr 26, 2016 17:40
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hamjobs posted:Remind me--you need a new drive band and a once-over on the wheel and it'll work itself out from there. Also I need to bring you an oil bottle and show you the oiling points again, it'll help the bobbin stop sticking. Make sure your brake is on the bobbin, too, because that'll make the bobbin actually turn at the correct pace, instead of freeballing around like an idiot baby bobbin. I tightened up the drive band with a new knot, so at least it's not a loosey drunky idiot band. It's a tight drunky idiot band. I did have the brake on the bobbin, but with even the tiniest bit of tension it would stick, and with no tension things went SO WRONG OH WOW, so I went with the tiny tension and unsticking every few seconds. I've finished plying and then did the re-ply, and now it's waiting for me to fish out my niddy-noddy to get it into a proper skein. Parts of it are hilariously overspun and feel like running your fingers down a hack-saw blade, but I'm not all that displeased with my first ever wheel spun yarn. That drat Satyr posted:I've been trying to get myself back into spinning and I still can't manage anything other than spin / park / draft, or I spend half .y time chasing the spindle all over the room. I have some questions though that maybe you guys can help me with. For the third time trying spinning, I'm super jealous of your progress. I've been spinning earnestly for over a year and I still over- and under-draft and over- and under-spin. I'm not sure if you mean drafting too much fiber at once or drafting an amount of fiber so that it's too thin, so I'm going to use "over draft" to mean yarn that thicker than you want and "under draft" to mean yarn that is thinner than you want. If you meant the opposite, then just swap the suggested fixes. I fix an over draft by parking, unwinding a bit, taking the twist out manually with my fingers, and carefully re-drafting to get it to the thickness I want, then letting the twist go back into the single. I don't back-spin the whole thing if there's only one bit that needs fixing. It's pretty easy to spot fix some place that's too thick. Too thin is a bit harder. I fix an under draft by pulling the fiber all the way off, letting the twist out of the too-thin end, and re-joining so that fiber ends overlap to the thickness I want. Sometimes I have to re-shape the ends or pull off a stringy bit or fold them over or whatever, but it gets more fiber in the spot I thinned out too much. It is hard to over-spin on a spindle unless it is spun so tight it is crawling into knots even when suspended or you get HARD knots instead of loops when you ease tension. My rule of thumb is that if it self-plies soft to the touch, it isn't over-spun. If it looks like plain fiber when self-plied (kinda like the yarn between your self-plied bits), then it's underspun. To test self-plying, I hold a foot or so of the single out with a little tension, and then snag the middle with my lips to hold tension while I bring my hands together in front of me, so the two sides are next to one another when I let go, and that leads to a reasonable ply-test with one bight instead of the yarn making its own decisions. You can do this without putting it in your mouth (I'm lazy and my mouth is RIGHT THERE) to make a small one by holding about 6" out with your thumb and first finger and hooking in the middle with your pinky to hold the tension. From what I can tell "good habits" are "things you figure out that you like the way they look and feel and you enjoy doing it". If you like it, it's good yarn. The yarn police aren't going to come arrest you for making wrong yarn. Some people make a living off spinning super uneven and crazy "art yarn" with weirdo crazy things stuck in to it. I got super fixated on making perfectly even yarn that looks like what you buy in a store, and yikes did that suck the fun out of it. This is for funsies, so don't get down on yourself for some unevenness, especially on try #3.
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Apr 29, 2016 02:38
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This is probably a stupidly obvious question, but: Wraps per inch can be figured on anything as long as it's an inch, right? Like, it doesn't really matter so much of the width of the thing, so long as you've got an even flat inch. Ie: I have a really fat ruler, but I can still use that, I don't need one of those stupid tools that costs like 20$ at my LYS. Right?
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May 5, 2016 02:04
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That's correct.
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May 5, 2016 07:37
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I did end up buying one, but I also have two I made out of package boxes.
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May 5, 2016 07:50
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There is little better than to have your yarn wound at the yarn store and when the worker asks for the label to just go "I made it  "
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May 14, 2016 07:14
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 This is my ridiculous cotton candy yarn. It's made from the mystery roving in the back. This is the third or fourth yarn I've made and I'm definitely still in park and draft mode. When I'm all done with this I'm going to ply it together and I'm hoping I get a pretty variegation out of it.
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May 29, 2016 17:59
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Advice on posture anyone? I have a modern spinning wheel and draft with my right hand. I have been having terrible pain in my right trap, which will sometimes move all the way down to my elbow or up my neck to the back of my skull. Last month I noticed when giving presentations at work, if I moved my arm behind me to point at things, my arm would hurt and feel weak. I was blaming my pull ups and deadlift workouts, but the asymmetry didn't make sense. I finally figured out it might be the spinning. Duh. As I'm drawing out, my trap is put in a pretty vulnerable position. I took a break from spinning for three days and it's like I never had a problem at all. My arm feels normal again. However, when I sat down to spin today, I was trying to adjust my posture and figure out what I could do better. I mean, people do those spinning marathons, and people have been spinning for ages without wrecking their bodies. There must be a solution. Maybe I was over thinking things, but it just seems like my arm ends up unsupported, putting a lot of strain on my trap. I tried keeping my elbow tucked in towards my body more, but that didn't seems to help. Like I said, I might just be gun shy at the moment, and maybe not even fully recovered from a month of spinning with poor form. And drat it, when I look up spinning posture, or spinning anything, I mostly get dumb spin bike crap. Don't you guys hate that? As an aside, my stuff looks incredibly even on the bobbin, impressing all who see it. I know better how inconsistent it really is. I guess time will tell if I actually can use it for anything. Man, I just wanna spin all summer long. This sucks.
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Jun 8, 2016 22:48
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When I'm spinning on my wheel I usually rest my hands in my lap, elbows about on my hips. It's a pretty relaxed posture and I haven't had any problems with it. (though my usual posture is pretty bad, I have a big slouching problem) How are you usually holding your hands?
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Jun 9, 2016 00:48
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I'm sitting up straight, shoulders back. My left forearm is able to rest on my tummy, but there's nothin but air between my body and right arm. As an update, what I've been trying for the last half hour is sitting way back in my seat and pressing my back against the back of the chair. It seems to be preventing my trap from being a try-hard and I feel like this might work. Gonna keep going like this and see if I'm hurting afterwards. This is weird for me because playing clarinet in high school ingrained in me sitting at the edge of a chair stock straight.
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Jun 9, 2016 01:36
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My only input on the posture thing is to take note of what you're doing with your neck and head because sometimes an odd position there will cause weird pain elsewhere. I gotta brag on this, though. Two 1 oz rolls of yarn, in the ballpark of 250-300 yards, and I got them even to within a body length of each other! 
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Jun 9, 2016 23:28
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Holy moly. Everything about that accomplishment is amazing. Good job, now what are you going to make with it? My posture is better, but the only chair I don't hurt myself on is the upper patio lawn chair and I sit in it like a low rider. Hi neighbors! I'm spinning like a boss!
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Jun 17, 2016 06:44
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petecas posted:I gotta brag on this, though. Two 1 oz rolls of yarn, in the ballpark of 250-300 yards, and I got them even to within a body length of each other! You should be bragging, that's impressive as heck. Nice yarn! It's Tour de Fleece again, so I'm spinning for a wedding gift of a woven throw blanket. This is the last bobbin of the first half pound, and I wound it off onto holding bobbins for plying last night. Another half pound of Anzula Stargazer to go for weft yarn. The warp is already spun; it's a silver-white kid mohair fleece blended with milk protein. Gonna be a 12-shaft hearts draft when I get it finished in Fiberworks.  So sparkly. Also bad news bears, my LYS (and my job) is going away. Anyone have suggestions on a new LYS that is fiber-bearing in the Bay Area?
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Jul 4, 2016 22:19
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I have embarked on the strangest adventure that I never really saw coming: experimental natural dyeing. My life for the past week has been nothing but blackberries and Queen Ann's lace. I'm shocked my husband has let me into his kitchen to do this while I work on building a setup for more toxic mordants than just alum to dye outside, but at least our house smells delicious. My first pull was from the veg of the blackberry plants, and it is the most amaaazingly golden yellowy brown, and shortly after I pulled the first batt from the blackberries. Both of these were in the dyepot for about 1.5 hours.  I have two more pieces in the blackberries that have been sitting in there for TWO DAYS so I am hoping they get a deeper color.  Another thing from the dye pot - a good friend of mine spun this yarn for me as a 'get well soon' present back when I had my hysterectomy, and I could never really figure out what to do with it. Originally it was a weird almost orangey peach color, to which I left it in the back glass of my car for about two months to let the sun bleach some of the color out of it. I decided since I still didn't have a real plan for it, I would sacrifice it to the dye pot... and HOLY CRAP. This color is SO hard to take a good photo of. It's like.. purple but also pink? We have a metal thing in our shower that holds soap and scrubbies and stuff, and when I took it out of the wash I hung it on that to dry, and there was a further reaction with the metal of the hook, giving some areas a more grey-blue cast. I can not get an accurate picture of this yarn to save my life. In sunlight it's one color, in room light, it's another. You literally have to see this in person to appreciate the depth of the color on it. I am seriously in awe of how great this came out. This one is also from the blackberry, and was soaked overnight.   And, lastly.... Since this is the spinning thread... I FINISHED MY FIRST FULL SKEIN OF SPINNING AND HOLY CRAP IT ONLY TOOK ME TWO YEARS TO DO.   165 yards total, 2 ply. I have no idea what I'll do with it - probably naalbind something, since that's honestly all I can really do anyway. But man I am so proud of myself for finishing. It's so soft and fluffy, I can't stop touching it. ;__; That Damn Satyr fucked around with this message at 01:28 on Jul 5, 2016 |
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Jul 4, 2016 23:59
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The start of Tour de Fleece always coincides with my internet friends' annual get-together, so I've been in full "technically one length of yarn is spinning" mode. Hope to get some more done when I get home.
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Jul 5, 2016 18:49
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Aunt Dahlia posted:
Glad to say this idea was abandoned, and I ordered my first wheel (a Spinolution Echo) over the weekend!  Now I just have to wait 4-6 weeks for shipping.In the meantime, have a picture of some yarn I made on the borrowed wheel: 
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Jul 20, 2016 23:54
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hamjobs posted:Also bad news bears, my LYS (and my job) is going away. Anyone have suggestions on a new LYS that is fiber-bearing in the Bay Area? Oh no! I was about to suggest a place in Sunnyvale, but I see now that it's the one closing. That was the first LYS I've ever been to and it was just lovely. So many different things, and really helpful staff.. The kind of store I dream about owning sometimes.. Do you know if there will be clearance sales or anything of the sort? I have more money than sense and an ever-growing hoard of yarn that demands to be fed new fibers constantly.
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Jul 21, 2016 08:24
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Bees on Wheat posted:Oh no! I was about to suggest a place in Sunnyvale, but I see now that it's the one closing. That was the first LYS I've ever been to and it was just lovely. So many different things, and really helpful staff.. The kind of store I dream about owning sometimes.. No clearance sales, no big closeout deals. The owners are retiring and pretty much everything that isn't selling out now will be taken home for their retirement enjoyment. I'm sort of secretly thrilled, because my bosses get to retire and actually make art again--they haven't had time in the ten years they've run the store to make much of anything. Even staff did the store samples, mostly. Green Planet doesn't carry fiber currently, but I'm trying to convince them it's a good idea. I'll ask again. Meridian Jacobs and Verb are the only ones in the Bay that I know of that carry fiber regularly; Imagiknit carries very little. I'll carry a decent retail line once I finish up opening the teaching studio next year, too.
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Jul 30, 2016 21:44
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Hey all, I am selling my remaining supplies of wool and other fibers in SA Mart if anyone is interested: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3789045 Mostly small amounts of odds and ends, but there's some silk and other more exotic stuff if you had ever wanted to try anything like that.
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Sep 4, 2016 22:42
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Hello, I'm working with a drop spindle to finish up my first real bit of yarn. I've got the roving spun into a single ply, but it's all one ball. Is there a resource that's all about plying yarn from one ball?
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Sep 8, 2016 19:28
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LevelC posted:Hello, I'm working with a drop spindle to finish up my first real bit of yarn. I've got the roving spun into a single ply, but it's all one ball. Is there a resource that's all about plying yarn from one ball? I do a center ball two-ply on all mine right now. I wind the singles off onto a ball winder and then ply those going the opposite way I spin the singles (which I spin clockwise and ply counter) pulling from the center and the outside. Means no wasted ends, since it basically pulls it all together. You can see it somewhat here:  The Center Pull ball on the winder.  Starting to ply it. I keep something in the center when not actively plying so the center doesn't collapse into yarnbarf.  Almost done, it's around my wrist. This was a 3.5 oz spin; right now I'm working on one of those again, as well as a 2 oz on a second spindle. I now have two spindles. Clearly the next step is a wheel.
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Sep 9, 2016 01:26
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Edit: /\/\/\ drat that's some nice spinning! Gorgeous!LevelC posted:Hello, I'm working with a drop spindle to finish up my first real bit of yarn. I've got the roving spun into a single ply, but it's all one ball. Is there a resource that's all about plying yarn from one ball? Do you own a ball winder? I personally would wind a center pull ball, then grab both ends from it and wind another, double stranded ball around a core (usually a cotton ball for me). Then just ply from that. It's so much easier that way, as once you have the double stranded ball wound, you basically don't have to worry about tension at all. Something like this: http://abbysyarns.com/2007/01/drop-spindle-plying-on-the-go-more-plying-tricks-from-the-andes/ If it's a rather small amount of singles you could use the "handy plying trick" that Abby mentions in the above link: http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEwinter05/FEAThandyplying.html Really don't wind too tightly though! I made my whole hand numb once doing that. 
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Sep 9, 2016 01:30
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Bob Shadycharacter posted:Edit: /\/\/\ drat that's some nice spinning! Gorgeous! Thanks! I've been at it for a year. Eventually I'll work myself back into chunky yarns, but lately everything I do is sock weight or finer. But sock weight is good for doll clothes.
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Sep 12, 2016 13:46
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I got some Icelandic fiber as a carded top but I want to spin it kind of loose and chunky with a lot of air in it. Is there some way to muss up the top a little bit (to make it more loose like roving) so it won't spin so dense? It's both long and short fibers (lopi (?)). When I've tried spinning it as-is it turns into this rock-hard dense thing which is sort of neat but not what I'm trying to do.
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Sep 20, 2016 04:04
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Do you have some way of carding wool? That's probably your best bet for getting a loose and chunky spin out of it. If you don't you can try fluffing it up with a lot of pre-drafting, but I'm not sure how well that would work.
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Sep 20, 2016 07:18
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Is there anyway to soften roving? I want to make some thrummed mittens, but the roving I have is pretty scratchy, not at all what I envisioned sticking my hands into.
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Sep 20, 2016 15:17
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You can try misting with a leave-in conditioner. Wool is pretty much just really crimped hair, so hair products work to some degree on it. You can also try soaking it without agitating in cool water with a little conditioner mixed into it.
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Sep 20, 2016 18:11
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Hello thread! I learned a few months ago that it was my older Ashford Traveller and not me that was the problem. Someone brought a brand new wheel to our guild to learn on and I was tasked with teaching them. drat them for showing me, but glad for it. So my dream wheel, the Kromski Minstrel stained mahogany, is here, but I'm way out of practice/having to relearn what I compensated for and I have this cold/flu bullshit. It's rather dreamy anyway. I now understand how people can spin miles of yarn during spinzilla! I'll be happy to get one or two skeins done this week, though. Always busy. I'm going to attempt to strip down the Ashford in the next month or two and see if maybe it's years of accumulated crud/oil/etc. Thing is nearly as old as I am according to a teacher we had during a workshop (uprights have no groove, so points to early '80s)
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Oct 6, 2016 00:54
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