This afternoon I spent a few hours with Heidi at the Spindle Loft, who very patiently showed me how to spin yarn with my Drop Spindle. I picked up a beautiful Forrester Spindle at the Creativ Festival a couple of years ago, along with some Corriedale roving, an instructional DVD and a reference book. Despite watching the DVD a couple times and reading the book cover to cover, I was too intimidated to try it on my own. My poor spindle lay unused in my yarn cupboard, until now.
After a few hours of drafting, spinning and plying, I'm starting to get it. Don't get me wrong - it's going to take lots of practice to do it well. Yards and yards and hours and hours of trial and error are ahead of me, until my fingers know just how far to attenuate the fiber and just how much twist is right. But the "Park and Draft" method of drop spindle spinning is perfect for a beginner like me. I can take my time and give my full attention to drafting the fiber properly and evenly.
Even better, Heidi spent a fair bit of time showing me how to fix things. Like how to unwind slubs, redraft and respin them. Like how to fix breaks where the fiber is drafted too thinly. Like how to release some twist where the yarn corkscrews. Lessons I'm going to put to good use, I'm sure.
4 comments:
oh, yay! I love watching new spinners find their footing. Beware the addiction, though!
Looks like fun. I like the colour nice and rich
Congratulations ! It's wonderful that you had some one on one help . I've learnerd to knit by reading books , but spinning strikes me as more difficult to pick up that way .
I love my drop spindle. Even though I have a wheel I still come back to it. Not nearly as clever as your teacher though.
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