So after our recent spinning lesson, I ended up buying a cheap spinning wheel from Ebay. When I went to collect it, the seller said “I bought this new a few years ago for my wife, but she never figured out how to work it, so it’s never been used”…… When I got it home, I managed to date the wheel as an Ashford Traditional wheel, made sometime around 1982!!
Anyhow, after a couple of sessions spinning black Bob Marley wigs, or white Santa Claus beards, The Shepherdess finally said “aren’t you supposed to twist two bits together to stop it from going all frozzly?”
“Of course!” I said. How hard can it be? 🙂
Well as it turns out, quite hard:
So, after a bit of research on Youtube, it turns out that I was going the wrong way! (face palm!). When you’re plying, you have to spin the wheel in the opposite direction, to counter the twists you put in when you spun the individual strands.
“Yes, I thought that” said The Shepherdess. “But you wouldn’t have listened to me anyway”.
So, it turns out that if you actually twizzel the strands together the right way, the resulting yarn is, well, almost yarn!! 😀
I then wound the wool off the bobbin, and onto a hastily constructed, and very noddy niddy noddy.
I then tied up the resulting skein and took it off the niddy noddy.
It was still a bit frizzly, so I gave it a rinse in some hot water and have now hung it above the Rayburn to dry.
Would you believe it? That’s very nearly yarn!
I think I’ve earned myself a whisky now! 😀
An Outdoor Life 