About a decade ago I bought a spinning wheel - a Kromski Polonaise (a good investment as it turns out as the price has doubled since then) - but never learned how to use it. I tried at one point, and we just fought each other. Oh the mysteries of tension and drive! Along the way I also picked up some spindles and a friend taught me the basics of park and draft, but I never really got good at that either. Then along came the Mighty Network and a community called Sheepspot. I joined it with the thought that I might finally learn to spin, but never had the time to really dedicate to it until I retired. I had re-upped my membership in The Sheepspot Guild last year (after letting it lapse for a while), and then Sasha offered a Spin School for beginners starting November 5. Conveniently I had started my terminal leave leading up to my retirement on October 21 so I signed up and I am very glad that I did. The skein on the left is the first skein that I plyed. It is the most inconsistently spun of the bunch, and it is too loosely plyed. The middle skein is the second one that I plyed. The spinning on that one is more consistent. The skein on the right is my latest one. The singles are still more consistent and also thinner. My niddy noddy creates one yard skeins so I am able to determine the yardage of each skein.
Skein 1: 47 yards, 57.8 grams
Skein 2: 38 yards, 43.8 grams
Skein 3: 60 yards, 44.9 grams
Sasha promised that she would make me besties with my wheel, and she delivered. I love spinning, and will be doing more. At this point I have been focusing solely on my short forward draft, just trying to be consistent. Once I have mastered that to my satisfaction (basically spinning consistent singles) I’ll go back to the videos and work on the short backward draft, spinning from the fold, and the supported long draw. I am using Heinz 57 from The Woolery to learn on (this is the fiber that Sasha recommended as being easy to spin) and it definitely is. She will be starting a free class for intermediate spinners next week that is supposed to help you continue to improve, which I signed up for, and in March it looks like she will be offering the Breed Study course, which I will also take. I may also dabble a bit in dying, just to add color to these skeins.
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