Welcome

Welcome.

Become part of the circle sharing inspiration for spinning and other fibre crafting. It is a warm and reassuring place, sort of like a favourite chair near a cosy fireside, where beginners and experts come and go as they please. It's a place to share what we know, learn from each other and display what we've created -- while supporting and inspiring each other on the wonderful journey associated with handspinning and wool-related crafts.

Friday 29 April 2011

Grab a spinning DVD bargain ...

I just wanted to let everyone know about a bargain DVD to download for $0.10! instead of $14.95. Yes, just 10 cents, or around what 7p here in the UK, and those of you elsewhere, well you can work it out.

The download is Respect The Spindle DVD by Abby Franquemont (also wrote a book by the same name which is the basis of the DVD) and is available here -
It's obviously more about using a spindle than a spinning wheel, but I am sure it would interest many of you and the skills of using a spindle transfer to using a wheel too, whichever is your preference.

Details of the DVD:
In Respect the Spindle: The Video, veteran spinner and spindle aficionado 
Abby Franquemont shows spinners old and new how to create volumes 
of incredible yarn with this amazing yet simple tool.
You’ll learn:
• How spinning works and how to spin on a simple stick
• How to make a functional spindle out of almost anything
• How to spin a lot of excellent yarn in an amazingly short time
• How to manage the yarn supply, to ply efficiently, and to finish appropriately

The result? Spinning will become your take-along, anytime, anywhere craft. 
You won’t want to leave home without it.

From looking at the reviews the quality may be of medium quality at times but hey for such a small amount of money who would grumble. I have downloaded it and taken a peek but haven't watched it all yet, but what I have seen looks good to me. Hope you enjoy it if you choose to.

See you all next week for the May Woolly Wednesday on May 4th, look forward to seeing what everyone has been doing, link to us on the day so we can share our creative spaces together. The linky will be on the blog late afternoon/early evening (UK time).

Friday 22 April 2011

Handwork Felting eCourse - Starts May 9, 2011

For anyone interested in learning more about felting, Little Acorn Learning will be presenting an eCourse instructed by master fibre artist, Jennifer Tan.
Please do pop over to Jennifer's blog Syrendell, for all the details.  If you browse through Jennifer's blog you will find many spinning and fibre-related posts.  Very inspirational and very creative!  She also sells beautiful handspun yarn, fibre batts and other fibre related treasures, as well as ebooks in her etsy shop.  Do pop on over to take a look.  Such an incredibly creative family!

Wednesday 6 April 2011

Woolly Wednesday April 2011

Welcome to our second Woolly Wednesday.


We will be hosting Woolly Wednesday on the first Wednesday of every month.

Think of it as a creative gathering, or a virtual guild meeting.  Bring along any fibre-related project, whatever it may be.  If you are starting out in fibre arts, share what you are interested in pursuing.  Let's show each other our projects, share any tips, tutorials, ask questions, seek advice. Add your post to the Linky below and we can visit one another and share, support, encourage, be inspired!.

 
Please feel free to add the button to your blog's sidebar with a link to Spinspiration, a lovely way for us all to link together. Just copy the image to your desktop and then in your blog design - add a gadget, add picture - upload the picture and then add the url (http://spinwheelspin.blogspot.com/) and the image will link to here.

Dawn's Woolly Wednesday for April

Wow, another month and it's been busy, sunny and warm since last month. I've just got back from helping out at the school visit to the farm today which was fantastic. We had a great day feeding the animals and seeing them all on the farm and we had a bumpy tractor ride too! Gorgeous weather we had too, sunny and hot ~  20°C ... perfect.

Also, as you may guess with me, I have made another connection and will be returning to the farm in June to pick up some gorgeous Alpaca fibre and hopefully a Dartmoor fleece or two (shhhh ... don't tell the husband!) and all free. Well you have to take these opportunities when they are handed to you, don't you.

So onto my post for April, a while back when talking with Imogen's teacher about this terms subject of the farm (hence the visit today), Imogen told her that I spun wool and had a spinning wheel. Her eyes lit up and she was quick to ask me if I would come in to show the children what I do. I said yes without thinking about it, thought it would be a great opportunity to show them something they probably hadn't seen and share my love of fibres and spinning. So my post to share today is about spinning with children.

I took the Louet wheel with me - easily transportable

Now I'm not a great speaker in front of people, and have always shyed away from needing to talk to large groups of people, so this was challenging me and taking me a little outside my comfort zone. But what the heck, it's for the kids. How many? ... 60! although in two groups, 30 at a time. Sorry no pictures, that would be a lot of permissions I'd need to gain. I can show you some of the stuff I took in though.

Over the previous week I have been gathering ideas of what to take and what to show them. I didn't want to just sit there spinning away for too long as that's not that interesting after a while if you're 4/5. So lots of things to look at, to smell (oh yes!) and to feel. I also made up some simple weaving braids for them ~ I was going to just make a few, maybe 20 and then let the teachers know how to make them but then was guilted by Imogen who said everyone needed one and those who didn't might get upset if they didn't have one. I had to agree, and didn't want that so I made 77 of these over a few evenings - plenty for everyone including the adults as Imogen said they needed one too!

 Making up the braiding/weaving disks

So we started by talking about wool and where it came from, how it came off the sheep, they are visiting a farm next week so this tied in nicely with things they were learning. I then sent round several bags of wool of different breeds to show the variation in natural colours - Black Hebridean, Grey Zwartble, Brown Manx and White Portland.

Some of the sample bags - washed and unwashed!


A bag of unwashed straight off the sheeps back, and a bag of washed to see the difference. They liked this bit - lots of shouts of "urgh" and "smelly", yes I did warn them! I also pointed out that they may not want to touch it but if they did to wash their hands afterwards (my little bit of H&S). They had a good feel of the wool, both unwashed and washed and loved it. I showed them the hand carders and how they combed the wool to get the fibres all in the same direction to make it easier to spin.

Carders, wool and roving
One of my spindles with rainbow roving

I then showed them a drop spindle and how that spun the wool which was received with lots of enthusiasm, and then showed how the spindle was like the spindle part of the wheel but that the wheel moving round spun the spindle. They saw the single ply yarn that both made as I sat and spun a little on both the spindle and the wheel. I sent around some samples of spun yarn - natural wools and some brightly coloured dyed wool.

Spun wool, alpaca and linen

Thinking that they would perhaps like to see wool spun I handed out to every child a small sample of merino roving for them to roll on their legs which they were all excited to try. I showed them if you pinch one end and roll it down their leg it spins it, hold both ends and repeat the rolling down the leg again in the same direction; once spun thinly I showed them that if you put the ends together it twists on itself and looks like wool yarn you would buy. They loved it, and there were varying levels of accuracy - some of them really got it. The teachers and assistants loved having a go too. Something for them to keep and take home.


A little merino roving to roll and spin on their leg


I then asked them if they knew of any other animals that have a fleece that could be spun? There were some interesting answers before I mentioned goats and sent some angorra goat wool around; alpaca and sent some alpaca round and llama fibre and sent some of that around too. This amazed some of the adults who didn't know you could spin that too. We then touched on spinning of other fibres too - plants and synthetics and I had samples of flax (linen) and cotton and some synthetic fibres too for them to look at and feel.

Angorra Goat, Alpaca and Llama fibres
Flax (linen), cotton and synthetic roving



The braiding and the finished braid 
~ can be used for friendship bracelets or whatever you like

A lovely day, I think it went well, they were very interested and enthusiastic, children and adults. The nerves? Well they kind of disappeared pretty quickly as the children came into the classroom and started asking questions "Wow, what's that?", etc. I also left a few books with the teachers to read with the children and a couple of small books about sheep breeds so they can look at them too over the next couple of days.

Some good woolly story books that take you through the 
process of shearing, washing, spinning and using the yarn

A good afternoon, a good afternoon indeed. A wonderful afternoon showing lovely children something that I love. But I was tired by the end of it! Lots of the children have since thanked me for the visit and told me they loved it, and their parents have said they talked about it too with enthusiasm. It was a great day today too, it was so hot and sunny today, and we're all tired, but another great day.

Kelly's Woolly Wednesday endeavours

Over the last few weeks I have spun up a couple of skeins of white wool.  They are two-ply.  I plan to naturally dye them soon.

 I spent an hour with a very experienced spinner.  Celia has been spinning for many years.  She watched me spin and gave me some tips and we chatted about spinning and dyeing and various fibres.  She gave me lots of  really useful tips and most importantly she really boosted my confidence and said I am spinning really well.  Hooray!  It was a well spent hour!

One thing that Celia said that I really appeals to my imagination is that each bit of fibre she spins up seems to have its own character and seems to choose it's own look!.  She says when she starts spinning a new batch of fibre it seems to communicate to her how it will turn out - thicker, very fine, singles, plyed  and so on.  I really agree with her there.  Since then I have found myself having a little chat with a new fibre I am spinning and asking it how it will spin, then it answers through my fingers!  Well, it seems that way to me anyhow!

Today, I started spinning some wool I naturally dyed with rosehips in the Autumn.  This fibre tells me to spin slow and not too fine.  Here and there I find a few bits of rosehip caught in the fibre which I pick out as I go along.  I think I will use this to knit up a palamino horse.  Just for fun, I tried to upload a video of me spinning this fibre but it was taking ages and ages to upload so I cancelled adding the video clip.  Sorry about that! 

Happy spinning!
Kelly

Monday 4 April 2011

Molly's fleece giveaway over at Wits End

Just to let you all know that Molly over at Wits End is having a wonderful fleece giveaway. Pop on over to take a look.
Thanks Molly!