It was a goal of mine this year to spin some yarn. I already started the year with 3 lovely bundles of fibre and a drop spindle which I bought myself back in 2015 and I really wanted to push myself to spin something. I can finally say I did it! Yahoo! Here it is.
Just look at those wonderful colours! I especially love the iridescent rainbowy sparkly bits!
As you will remember from previous posts i started with this bundle of fibre (if you know the proper name please let me know!
Which I turned into these nests
Predrafting is really helpful, I found. It meant when I came to the actual spinning part, I had a lot more control over the thickness.
Here it is on my spindle. Its quite a satisfying sight isnt it! I wasnt prepared for how much back ache thr drop spindle method causes. I have back problems anyways (the doctors tell me that my vertebrea in my spine are lazy, by which I mean instead of taking an equal share of the pressure as they should, most of them shirk their responsibilities and so all of the work is left down to 2 very over worked vertebrea right at the small of my back) which mean my back has a lot less tollerance of repetative motions. And my god, my back hurt by the end! I shall have to find a better way of sitting/standing. I tried standing but thrn I found I had nowhere to park my spindle.
I then wound it onto my niddy noddy and soaked it for 10 minutes. Unfortunately, i found out much too late that I didnt have anything which my niddy noddy would fit in to soak. The best I could do was my partners brewing pan, and even then I had to turn it over during the soaking process to get an even soak.
Finally I hung it to dry. I hung a small weight (a bag of pasta, in fact) off of the end of the yarn just to encourage it to dry straight.
I am very pleased with the outcome. I love the colours and I love the way they spiral into each other. There are a few areas where its a bit thicker than other areas, but overall I think it is mostly uniform. Now to find something to make with it!
On a side note, I will be moving next week, so will probably have very little time for crafting, so dont be surprised if I dont post for a while. On the upside, once I return I hope to have lots of gardeny type stuff, because, yes, I have managed to find a place in london with a front AND back garden! I cant wait to get a bit crafty in the garden! I have been oogling pinterest ever since I knew I was getting a garden!