There are many benefits of spinning yarn with a drop spindle. We will discuss how to use a drop spindle, so if you are brand new, this article is for you!

New to spinning yarn? There are various factors that will help to achieve a consistent handspun yarn, which we will discuss today.

There’s quite a lot of technical language that you encounter when delving into the world of spinning instructions, and you’ll find yourself in an especially confusing place if you’…

This is a list of my 5 favorite how to spin yarn books for beginners. If you are building a library of spinning books, here they are!

25 Scrap Yarn Projects to use up all those bits of Leftover Yarn

In these blog posts, we will be discussing how to make a spinning wheel for yarn. Spinning wheels are one of the essential tools for,,,

Over the last couple of years, I’ve spent a significant amount of time spinning merino and other finer fibres that I’ve prepared myself; whether it’s combed top using my mini wool combs, blended top on my hackle, or rolag-punis on my blending board. Earlier this year, however, I took a trip to Wonderwool Wales where I treated myself to a sweater quantity of fibre - I bought this hand-painted blue-faced Leicester and camel blend… … and this blend of Black Welsh wool and merino, along with some recycled sari silk. The V Back Tee - image copyright Jamie Hoffman I had the idea that I would knit a beautiful, deep red, long-sleeved V-Back Tee sweater to wear on Christmas day. It was going to be luxurious! Unfortunately, both of the wool tops that I purchased had quite a few coarse fibres, and the recycled sari silk was definitely going to add to the itch factor. 3-ply fractal yarn spun from hand-painted top 3-ply yarn spun from Welsh Black wool and Merino, blended with sari silk They were still beautiful yarns, and a few years ago I would have been over-the-moon with them, but they just didn’t have the neck soft, quality feel to them that I was hoping for. Well, I was originally going to knit the V-Back Tee sweater using just two colours, but as I definitely don’t want either of my original yarns to sit around my neck and shoulders, I decided to design my own complementary, 3ply fractal yarn using techniques that I’ve been practicing over the last couple of years. In a fractal yarn, you divide the hand-painted top down the middle, vertically, into the number of plies you want to spin, and then those sections are divided into an increasing number of sections so that the colour repeats become shorter with each ply. By varying the length of the colour sections within each ply, you take control of the amount of colour pooling when it is plied, and achieve a consistent mix of colours throughout the whole of the yarn. I’m calling this technique a complex fractal yarn as there will be changes to the colour arrangement within each ply, and it will be much more designed than a fractal yarn, but it will be based on the same basic principle. I’m hoping that the final yarn will have the look of a fractal yarn, but with a much more heathered, complex appearance when you take a closer look. Jonquil (yellow), Mediterranean (cyan), raspberry (magenta), scarlet (red) and lightning (white) from World of Wool. Blue and black from John Arbon Textiles Instead of using hand-painted top, I’ll be blending merino wool in red, blue, yellow, cyan and magenta, along with black and white. Hopefully, I’ll use my experience with colour blending to design a variegated yarn that is mostly red and burgundy, with the occasional pop of contrasting colour. I’ll list the recipes for each colour below, but here’s a video showing my combing technique for mixing a beautiful blue/violet colour. If you'd like to see my process for preparing this yarn in more detail, I've made a 7-minute video here which shows some of the techniques in more detail than I can here. Ply 1 These are the blended colours I began with for my first ply, and the amount of fibre I can comfortably get onto my hand made hackle. All of these little nests have been hand blended with my 3D printed mini wool combs using the merino wool primaries above. Each of my plies will have the same three blended red colours carried throughout them (rows 1, 3 and 4 above) but the colours in the second row will be swapped out for two different colours with each ply. (Please ignore the spacing of my colours here - it was my first attempt at loading my hackle and my maths went a little awry!) As the main three colours that are carried throughout all three plies make up three-quarters of the colour content, I divided the number of spikes on my hackle by four and placed the three main colours on this number of spikes. There are 79 spikes on one row of my hackle so I placed the dusky pink on the central 20 spikes and the 2 darker reds on the outer 20 spikes. The olive green and light pink were placed on the remaining, off-centre, 10 and 9 spikes. (I'll go into my hackle loading technique lower down) Here’s an animated gif of my technique for pulling off the first ply. I go left and right, using a small hole in my diz to control the amount of fibre drafted off each time. If this was a traditional fractal yarn, this would be the ply that had been divided up the most. I’m pulling off a fibre length of merino, and every time I return my diz to the hackle I move along to the next section of fibre. This ensures that the colour sections are as short as possible. As I work my way towards the hackle, the colour sections will inevitably become shorter as the fibres become shorter - but this will be the case for all of my plies, so hopefully, it should only add to the complexity of the yarn. You can see all of the colours in this first ply around the outside of my nest of pulled top. Ply 2 These are the colours I blended for my 2nd ply. The colour recipes can be found below. After pulling off the top for the first ply, I decided that I didn't want any green in the other two plies. The green, combined with the reds would result in what would appear to be a lot of brown running through the yarn. I quite like the idea of a little muddiness to tone the yarn down, but I wanted the reds and burgundies to be the dominant colours. I made a video of my hackle loading and dizzing technique in more depth here - I find inserting a strip of craft plastic to the left of where I want my fibre to end helps me to take better control of where I place the fibre on the hackle. Sliding my fibre down the side of the plastic strip ensures that all of the spikes are filled, without the fibre traveling further along than I want it to. This was my drafting technique for the second ply. In a traditional fractal yarn, you might double the number of times the strips of hand-painted top are divided up with each ply. As I'm drafting the fibre off my hackle, I alter the lengths of the colour sections by doubling the amount of fibre I pull off with each pass. If you look carefully, I draft fibre twice from the same spot before moving along to the next section of fibre. This should hopefully give me colour sections that are approximately twice as long as in the first ply. Ply 2 Pulled off the hackle Here's my pulled top for ply 2, wound into a ball. You have to really look into the ball to see the blue fibre that was pulled off much later on in the first pass along the hackle. Ply 3 These are the colours I blended for my 3rd ply, the colour recipes can be found below. After blending for my first two plies, I decided that I really wanted all of the colours in this ply to be from the red family, so that there would be a red/pink ply running throughout the entire yarn. You may have noticed that I changed the arrangement of my main 3 reds with every ply. As I drafted from right to left, and then back again, it meant that the outer two colour sections drafted out twice as long as the centre colour (and appeared half as frequently). For this reason, each of the main reds took turns to be placed in the centre section - another factor that added to the complexity of my final yarn. In this animated gif you can see that I draft the fibres from the same spot four times before moving onto the next section. If this was a traditional fractal yarn, this would be the ply spun from the least divided hand-painted top section, and the ply with the longest colour areas. Here's the fibre for the third ply after it's been drafted off my hackle. Hopefully, you can see that the colour sections are much longer than in the previous two plies. Three full Nano bobbins, ready to ply! It's really quite exciting, not knowing how my yarn is going to turn out! Even after I'd plied it on my Hansencrafts Minispinner, I didn't truly get a feel for how well the colours were going to work together until I'd wound it into a skein... Ta-da! What do you think?! I absolutely love it! I love how, from across the room, it looks like a heathered, deep red colour with pink stripes running through it, but when you get a little closer, there are so many more colour combinations in there. I’m actually quite pleased that my original two yarns were slightly disappointing. I’m not sure I would have had the patience to do all of that blending to design my ideal complementary yarn otherwise. So often I write tutorials, partly to share my techniques, but mostly so that I can look back at my notes in the future and remind myself how I did something at a later date. I do wonder if this is yet another of my tutorials where I’m the only person that is actually bonkers enough to give it a go? This is quite an extreme example of my complex fractal concept. Of course, not all of the colours need to be blended by hand and you don’t necessarily have to change the colour arrangement with every ply. It could just be a way of using up your stash of dyed wool to create a unique fractal yarn for a fraction of the price of buying hand painted top. Please do let me know if you try out my complex fractal technique. It would really make my day! If you've found this post interesting or useful, please pin it to Pinterest. It makes a big difference to me and helps other spinners find it too. If you'd like to be updated when I post a video version of this blog post please follow my YouTube channel. At this point, I normally suggest similar related blog posts, however, my list of spinning-related content is becoming a little unmanageable... If you'd like to read more blog posts about spinning and fibre preparation, please take a look at this page here where you will find links to all of my spinning and fibre articles. Thank you for reading, and happy spinning! --- You may be interested in some of my other spinning-related blog posts - 9 Different Ways of Spinning a Multicoloured Blend While Trying to Avoid 'Spinning Mud' Spinning into Focus Chain-Plying at the Wheel Versus Making a Chain-Plied Ball Blending and Spinning a Rainbow Yarn 2 Ways Linear Blending a Gradient Hackle Blending a Long Gradient Using a Blending Board to blend a Repeatable Sweater Quantity How to Measure Handspun Yarn Using an App Free Handspun Yarn Labels Spinning Dog Hair DIY Hackle DIY Mini Wool Combs 3D Printed Modular Lazy Kate Yarn Gauge Reference Tool for Hand Spinners Testing the Electric Eel Wheel Yarn Counter Prototype Spinning Supercoil Yarn Using Waste Fibres Unbiased Review of the Daedalus Sparrow Testing the LWS Autowinder for the Electric Eel Wheel 6 ---------- Please be sweet and share the love. Leave a comment, subscribe to my YouTube channel, like my Facebook page for regular updates or follow me on Pinterest, Bloglovin' or Instagram

If you are BRAND NEW to the world of spinning your own yarn, you are in the right place! This is the go-to place for absolute beginner spinners.

Wild Flower Honey Bulky Art Yarn. The inspiration of this homespun yarn was a giveaway in honor of Honey bees and Beekeepers. It reminded me of the Wild Flowers and H9ney Bees. Read more...

Last month, I shared the final two yarns in my Spinning into Focus series, demonstrating the two most popular methods used by spinners to avoid completely blending the colours in a multicoloured top together. My idea was that by the end of this blog series, I would have a sweater quantity of different yarns, all spun from the same multi-coloured, commercially available blended top - Slack Ma Girdle from John Arbon Textiles. The yarns all have varying levels of colour blending so that I can eventually knit a garment that has the colours appearing to come into focus as they work their way down, up, or across the garment. The yarns are unquestionably complementary as they will all have the same primary colours at their base. I rarely have the patience or attention span required to spin a sweater quantity of fibre, so dividing it up into lots of little spins has really helped to keep me motivated. Well, I didn’t know how many different techniques I was going to use when I began, but I’ve finally finished spinning my original 700g of fibre into 10 different yarns - And here they all are! From a distance, you get the impression that they’re all a warm autumnal brown colour… … but when you get just a little bit closer you start to see those pops of colour more clearly. The other reason I love this approach to spinning a multi-coloured blended top is that it satisfies the dual sides of my personal taste - When it comes to spinning yarns, I would much rather spin a glorious array of ever-changing colour that holds my attention and keeps me interested; however, when it comes to my fashion choices, I'm much more reserved. By spinning the yarns into focus, I have a range of coloured yarns that go from an understated, neutral to a colourful statement yarn, and all of the possibilities in between. It has been such a satisfying project! In the images below you can see that I’ve hand wound all of my yarns into nostepinne style balls as I think this is one of the best ways of showing the length of the different colour sections within a variegated yarn. The following is a rundown of all the techniques I used in this blog series and their accompanying videos. Click on the heading to read more about how the yarns were spun. There’s also a rundown of all 10 yarns in video form here - Technique 1: Drum Carding for a Homogeneous Blend. Technique 2: Using Mini Wool Combs Technique 3: Drafting the Top and Spinning from the End. Technique 4: Laying the fibres onto a blending board and then dizzing them off Technique 5: Spinning from the end of the top without pre-drafting Technique 6: Drafting 3 Layers onto a Blending Board and rolling off 3 Rolags Technique 7: placing a single layer onto the blending board and pulling off 3 rolags Technique 8: placing a single layer on the blending board and then rolling off a single rolag The Wildcards Called such because they don’t really fit into the pattern of the colour sections becoming progressively longer and less muddy with each yarn. The first has much longer colour sections but the colours are quite muted, and the second has the brightest colours of all the yarns, but also the shortest colour sections. Wildcard #1: Breaking the Top into a Fibonacci Sequence and then Splitting it Vertically Wildcard #2: Spinning From the Fold Sampling Well, I normally find swatch knitting very tedious but I don’t think I’ve ever been so motivated to knit up a square of handspun yarn - Here are all 10 yarns knitted into focus. I knitted 4 rows of each yarn, apart from the final spun from the fold yarn at the bottom which is also carried through to the garter stitch bottom edging. It really is the busiest and most colourful of yarns so I’m still a little undecided as to whether I will include it in my final garment… As an aside, while I was spinning all of my different yarns, I designed some yarn tags so that I could easily keep track of which technique I'd used with which yarn. I designed them to fit on the back of my printable handspun yarn labels. I can see them coming in handy for sampling small amounts of fibre before going on to spin for a larger project. I will definitely be using them a lot in the future. The yarn geek in me also couldn’t resist making these little Spinning into Focus WPI tags to record my project. It feels like it’s been such a worthwhile exercise and I wanted to have a reference to look back on after I’ve knitted up all of my yarn. I'll probably share the printables in a future blog post soon. I don't imagine many spinners will want to spin all 10 techniques but a few of my Instagram spinning friends have said that they’d like to try spinning into focus on a smaller scale so hopefully they’ll come in useful. Thank you so much for coming along with me on my Spinning into Focus journey. I’ve had so many lovely comments about this spinning series and I’ve been so very grateful to all the spinners cheering me on along the way. I’ve had a blast! If you’ve enjoyed this post or found any of this series useful, please pin it to Pinterest. It really makes a big difference to me and helps other spinners find it too. At this point, I normally suggest similar related blog posts, however, my list of spinning-related content is becoming a little unmanageable... If you'd like to read more blog posts about spinning and fibre preparation, please take a look at this page here where you will find links to all of my spinning and fibre articles. Thank you for reading, and happy spinning! Other Spinning-Related Blog Posts Spinning into Focus Techniques 1, 2 and 3 Spinning into Focus - Techniques 4 and 5 Spinning into Focus Techniques 6, 7 and 8 Spinning into Focus - The Two Most popular methods used by spinners to avoid 'Spinning mud' 9 Different Ways of Spinning a Multicoloured Blend While Trying to Avoid 'Spinning Mud' Spinning into Focus Linear Blending a Gradient Hackle Blending a Long Gradient Free Handspun Yarn Labels Spinning Dog Hair DIY Hackle DIY Mini Wool Combs Yarn Gauge Reference Tool for Hand Spinners Spinning Supercoil Yarn Using Waste Fibres Spinning a Complex Fractal 3 Ply Yarn

Spinning is creative, relaxing and therapeutic, join me to discover more. click on course title to find out more, for further details contact me on [email protected] or 07850 716602 Beginnin…

When you hold a floof of fiber in your hands you can get a little overwhelmed with all the possibilities. There are so many different spinning and plying techniques to try and there's only so much time in the day. That's why I decided to share my 3 favorite go-to techniques for those days when

As a preface, this blog post has been several months in the making and is one of my longer blog posts. I talk about my experiments, mistakes and learning process in perfecting my technique for spinning chiengora. If you’re just a little bit curious about how to spin dog hair, I've made a short video that summarises my final, start to finish process for spinning dog hair here - If you’d like to learn more, read on... Spinning Chiengora As a spinner, I love trying out new or unusual fibres, and one fibre I've been very intrigued by is dog hair or chiengora (so-called because of its similarity in appearance and texture to angora). There are usually one of three reactions when someone mentions spinning dog hair. People are either repulsed at the thought of wearing something that might smell of wet dog, they just think it’s extremely weird, or they love the idea of having a memento that is made purely out of the fur of their beloved pet. Spinning dog hair is certainly not a recent fad. Items dating back to pre-historic Scandinavia were found to be made from dog hair, and dogs were the main providers of protein fibres to the Native American Navajos before sheep were introduced to the continent. The best dogs for providing fibre for spinning are long-haired, double-coated dogs that have definite shedding phases, when they primarily shed their undercoat. Anyone that has ever owned a double-coated dog knows that underneath the stiff, wiry guard hairs, lie much softer, finer, downy undercoat hairs. It's these finer, hidden hairs that are just perfect for spinning into a luxurious yarn. If you had the dog, the opportunity and the skill, why would you not turn the shed hair into an extremely warm, luxurious yarn, instead of throwing it away? Popular dogs for spinning into yarn are:- Samoyed Siberian Husky Alaskan Malamute Great Pyrenees German Shepherd Dog Norwegian Elkhound Newfoundland Chow chow Old English Sheepdog Bernese Mountain Dog Golden Retriever Collie This is actually my second attempt at writing a blog post about my experience spinning dog hair, but my original post started to turn into more of a - how not to harvest dog hair - that I decided to wait until an opportunity to spin a better source of chiengora fibre arose. If you're looking to spin your own dog's hair, I would highly recommend taking a look at a forum on Ravelry called - "Spinning Dog Fiber - aka Spinnin' Chien." I picked up a lot of tips on fibre preparation there and a lot of the information I'm sharing here came from the extremely helpful forum members there. Tips for harvesting and storing dog hair Dog hair for spinning should always come from brushings rather than clippings. Ideally, you just want to spin the finer undercoat, so clippings will always contain a lot more guard hairs. Cut ends can also add to the prickly nature of the yarn. If your dog sheds once or twice a year then the best undercoat fibres are brushed out at the beginning of the shedding, as fewer guard hairs are dropped at this stage. Don't be afraid to be selective about which brushings you keep and which you discard. It's much better to have a small amount of luxurious yarn than a large amount of mediocre, itchy yarn. Unfortunately, I don't have a dog myself, but many double-coated dog owners tell me that you get varying qualities of hair from different parts of the dog. Like a sheep or alpaca, you get much softer, finer hair from the back, neck and sides. The legs, tail and stomach yield shorter or coarser hair and so it's better to discard these hairs if you want a more luxurious, wearable yarn. Storing the fibres well is crucial. Make sure that whatever you keep the hair in is breathable - like a paper bag, cardboard box or old pillowcase. Try not to pack it in too tightly as this will increase the risk of it all matting together. --- My first (disappointing) attempt at spinning dog hair Five years ago, we were at a friends' house and I was admiring their pet cockapoo. I flippantly said that I would love to spin its fur - knowing nothing about spinning dog hair at the time. Well, a year later they confessed that they'd been saving all of their dog's hair - in the hope that I would spin some cockapoo yarn for their 13-year-old daughter to knit with. Cockapoo image from Wikipedia Bless them, they'd been diligently putting all the hair into little black dog-poo-bags and knotting them tightly when they were full. They'd tried to get as much as possible into the plastic bags to save space, so the hair was really well packed in. Having read a lot more about spinning dog hair since, I now know that keeping dog hair packed into a plastic bag for long periods of time is really not ideal as the hair can sweat and start to matt over time. Trust me, unwashed-year-old dog hair, kept in a plastic bag is particularly smelly! I also don't think that a cockapoo is the ideal dog for spinning. It's a cross between a cocker spaniel and a poodle and any dog crossed with a poodle is quite likely to be low shedding and single coated, so I was really not off to a good start. Well, I washed it, carded it and spun a knittable yarn, but it was quite clear that any yarn I produced was definitely going to be too itchy to wear. It was just too full of guard hairs and clipped ends that it felt more like string than yarn. I spun enough for our friends' daughter to knit a Christmas stocking for their dog and then disposed of the remaining dog hair as quickly as possible... --- My experience spinning Malamute Last year, a local lady posted on Ravelry, asking if anyone would be willing to spin some long-haired malamute fibre for her. After my failed attempt a few years ago, I really wanted to redeem myself, so I offered to spin a hundred grams or so for her - purely as a learning experience and to add a little variety to my own yarn stash. I told her to save just the brushings and to keep it stored in a breathable container. I now know that I should have also asked her to be a bit more selective about the fibres that she saved - but that was another lesson I learned! Well, she turned up at my door with two pillowcases full of soft, malamute hair. There were probably 500 grams in there - all from one season's shedding! As you can see, there is a real mixture of fibres in there. Just touching it, I could feel that it was so much softer than the cockapoo hair I'd spun previously, but at first glance you can see that there are also a lot of guard hairs in there. Underhairs come in a variety of shades and they're frequently a slightly different shade to the protective guard hairs. At first glance, it looked like these malamute guard hairs were mostly black, or white with black tips. I later learned that there were also a lot of white guard hairs in there as well. Sorting and washing the Malamute fibre I spent a couple of days sorting the dog fibres. I pulled out the darkest sections as these contained the most guard hairs. I also removed the shorter, coarser hairs, and sections that were overly matted or full of dander as these were not going to be pleasant to spin. I must admit to being quite ruthless, but I quickly learned (from colour, appearance and texture) which fibres were going to be the softest. I'm sure if I was a dog owner as well as a spinner, this process would be much easier as the fibres would be more efficiently sorted at the grooming stage. I also now know that it would be much better to save just the softer hairs from the first brushings - when the dog first begins to shed - as these contain fewer guard hairs. The malamute that donated the hair must have been very well looked after, as the hair was quite clean and smelled only slightly 'doggy'. I decided, however, to wash it anyway. Opening up the fibres as I went, I placed the lighter sections of fibre in a large delicates laundry bag, ready to be soaked. I was intrigued to see how well 'Soak', my favourite wool and delicates washing liquid, would clean the malamute fibres. Soak isn't necessarily recommended for washing pre-spun fibres, but I wanted to minimise agitation of the malamute - which could cause felting, so I thought it was worth a try. I made this animated gif to show just how much dirt came out of what I thought was pretty clean dog hair after three. thirty minute soaks and one rinse. This is the wet malamute fibres after they've been for a gentle spin in my washing machine at 400rpm for 15 minutes to remove a lot of the excess water. I love how you can see the bright whites and soft beiges more clearly now in the underhair. It's winter here in the UK and so I hung my bag of wet malamute fibres on a radiator, periodically checking it and fluffing the fibres out. It took about two days to completely dry. It hadn't been particularly dirty to start with, but now there wasn't the remotest smell of dogginess. A quite serendipitous thing happened too. As the underhairs are so fine and smooth, they became statically charged as they became dryer and dryer. I noticed that the very thickest guard hairs had started to fall out of the laundry bag of their own accord. These are just a few that I picked up off the bathroom floor. You can see here that there are a lot more white guard hairs in there than I anticipated. Shaking the bag repeatedly encouraged a lot more of the thicker guard hairs to either fall out of the laundry bag or just poke out, allowing me to remove them with a sticky lint roller. These are all of the sticky roller sheets I used on the outside of the laundry bag. Removing even more guard hairs When I first started reading the Spinnin' Chien forum, one member described a process of removing the guard hairs by placing the dog hair in a delicates laundry bag and putting them in the dryer with some pieces of foam and fleece. Initially, I thought this sounded quite risky and possibly fool-hardy, but as I could still see quite a lot of guard hairs amongst the fine downy malamute fibres I decided to take the risk. I keep guinea pigs, so I have a couple of densely woven laundry bags designed for washing guinea pig fleeces in to stop the hay and hair from clogging the washing machine. I put my delicates bag full of malamute fibres in my pet laundry bag and stuffed it full of foam offcuts. I zipped it up, crossed my fingers and put it in my dryer for 30 minutes on a gentle heat cycle. This is what the inside of the pet hair bag looked like when I removed it from the dryer. The inside, the foam pieces, and the delicates bag were all covered in guard hairs! I spent a good hour or so with my sticky roller, removing the guard hairs from the inside of the pet bag, the foam pieces and the outside of the delicates laundry bag. Thankfully the malamute fibres hadn't felted in the dryer and I had the softest mound of malamute fibres with just a few finer guard hairs left in. Unfortunately, at this stage it was very difficult to handle as it was so full of static charge that it wanted to cling to everything in sight! A quick spritz over the surface and then a gentle mixing with detangling spray dissipated the static charge straight away. It also made the fibres smell lovely! Spinning Malamute A lot of spinners of chiengora insist that the dog hairs need to be at least 1 and a half inches long. Most dog hair doesn't have the same crimp as wool, it's also slippier and so the shorter fibres have a tendency to shed from the yarn. It's not unusual for chiengora spinners to blend the dog hair with wool or alpaca to make it easier to spin, with less shedding, but the purist in me wanted to spin 100% malamute. Looking through my malamute fibres, I noticed a wide range of staple lengths and textures. Some were as long as three and a half inches, but most of them were between one and a half and two and a half inches. I knew that I was going to have to spin a much tighter yarn than I was used to, to ensure that the fibres held together well. In my first attempt at spinning malamute, I tried to hand-card the hair. Unfortunately the shorter, fluffier fibres rolled themselves into little neps, I eventually gave up on carding the dog hair and just fluffed it up and spun it from the cloud. A cloud of malamute fibre After consulting the members of the Spinnin' Chien forum, I was advised that my wool carders really weren't suitable for dog hair, and experienced chiengora spinners use cotton carders that have much finer, more densely spaced teeth. This was the first malamute yarn I spun. It's a 2ply, spun from the cloud. I was relatively pleased with it, but you can see that there are an awful lot of slubs in there, and as it's spun from the cloud, it's quite untidy and very much a woolen-spun yarn. I use an e-spinner, which doesn't really lend itself well to the stop-start and varying speeds required when spinning from the cloud, so next, I decided to attempt a more worsted-style fibre preparation. I wasn't about to invest in expensive equipment for what may be a one-off project, so I decided to try and build my own simple hackle out of inexpensive dog combs and a table clamp that I've had for decades. I managed to find three of these combination dog combs at Pets at Home. They were half price at £4.75 each. They have two densities of tines and the more closely spaced teeth are perfect for preparing my fine malamute fibres. I taped them together with double-sided sticky tape and then clamped them in my tabletop clamp with the finer teeth sticking out. I made a little 2 minute video to show my technique for aligning my malamute fibres to make a kind of lightweight top. Basically, I teased and opened up the malamute fibres, drafting them open with my right hand and then lowering them onto the dog combs with the more open fibres to the right of the teeth. Once my dog comb was half full, I carefully drafted out the fibres into a top, discarding the shortest and most knotted fibres that remained on the comb at the end. I then halved the length of fibres a couple of times so that I had a mix of long and short fibres on top of each other and then I drafted the four lengths into one length of fibres. Here are my sweet little nests of malamute fibre that are so much easier to spin on my Hansen Minispinner as they require far less effort to spin at a constant speed. There are still quite a few little neps in there, but you can see the fibres are now much more aligned. Spinning my prepared malamute fibre was so far more relaxing after it had been drafted out. I spun a high twist, fine single with the intention of chain plying it later. Please take a look at my video on pre-chain plying singles - Before plying I left my singles to rest for several days for the twist to relax a little so that it was easier to manage. Here are the first two malamute yarns that I spun. The top one is the very first yarn that I spun. It's a two-ply and was spun from the cloud. The bottom one is chain plied and was spun from drafted, combed fibres, prepared on my home made hackle. I love how much more definition the lower one has and I'm sure it would be much more comfortable to wear, having fewer guard hairs and less of a halo. I did actually spin a third yarn (the first in this picture) where I pulled out every guard hair by hand, but that was just too ridiculously labour intensive. I would not recommend it! As a thank you to the dog owner that provided me with the malamute hair, I knitted these little hearts that she could keep as a memento - along with enough yarn for her to knit herself some wrist-warmers or a hat. I've still got a lot of malamute left to spin for myself - maybe I'll try dyeing some next year. Chiengora is 80% warmer than sheep's wool so it'll be perfect for next winter's accessories! This blog post contains Amazon affiliate links to similar products that I purchased myself to prepare and spin the chiengora yarn. If you click through and purchase anything, I may receive a very small percentage of the purchase price. At this point, I normally suggest similar related blog posts, however, my list of spinning-related content is becoming a little unmanageable... If you'd like to read more blog posts about spinning and fibre preparation, please take a look at this page here where you will find links to all of my spinning and fibre articles. Thank you for reading, and happy spinning! If you enjoyed this, you might like to take a look at some of my other spinning-related blog posts - 9 Different Ways of Spinning a Multicoloured Blend While Trying to Avoid 'Spinning Mud' Spinning into Focus Chain-Plying at the Wheel Versus Making a Chain-Plied Ball Blending and Spinning a Rainbow Yarn 2 Ways How to Measure Handspun Yarn Using an App Free Handspun Yarn Labels DIY Hackle DIY Mini Wool Combs 3D Printed Modular Lazy Kate Yarn gauge reference tool for hand spinners Testing the Electric Eel Wheel Yarn Counter Prototype Hackle Blending a Long Gradient Linear Blending a Gradient Spinning Supercoil Yarn Using Waste Fibres Unbiased Review of the Daedalus Sparrow Testing the LWS Autowinder for the Electric Eel Wheel 6 ---------- Please be sweet and share the love. Leave a comment, subscribe to my YouTube channel, like my Facebook page for regular updates or follow me on Pinterest, Bloglovin' or Instagram

A blog about a journey to learning and perfecting my passion for fiber spinning, Fiber Art, Homemade crafts, etc.

Excited to embark your spinning adventures, but not sure where to start? This post has everything you need to know when learning how to spin yarn.

Using a drop spindle is a fun way to get started in the wide, wide world of hand spinning wool. The drop spindle is inexpensive to buy and an easy DIY project. We just finished a weekend at the Heart of New Mexico Fiber Gathering where I was able to demonstrate spindle spinning and visit with many people who are trying to learn how to spin yarn. These tips are my best advice for a beginning spindler. Don't feel frustrated until you've tried them all! 1. Watch someone spin with a drop spindle.I

As spinners our goal is to be able to control the spin so we get the type of yarn we want every time, which starts with how we are drafting the fiber. Jeannine Bakriges shows us seven methods of drafting; how many of them do you use?

Drop spindles are a handy way to keep your hands busy, and an inexpensive (and portable) way to produce homemade yarn. They're perfect for relaxing with family or spending quality evenings by the fire in

Drop spindles are a fun, easy, and inexpensive way to get into spinning yarn. They are super simple to make and I'll walk you through making your own.

So you just got your first spinning wheel! Let’s get you spinning and learn how to spin on a spinning wheel for absolute beginners!

“I don’t want to spin mud” - This is a very common phrase uttered amongst hand spinners and it refers to the frustrating phenomenon of buying the most beautiful, multi-coloured blend of fibres, and then spinning a yarn from it that, from a short distance, looks like a murky brown or dirty grey colour. I’ve done it myself. I bought three hundred grams of World of Wool’s Fairytale blend called “Over the Rainbow” and took it away on holiday to spin. Image copyright World of Wool It’s gorgeous, and if I’d spun it using a drafting or preparation method that would have kept those colours separated, I would have achieved a beautifully variegated yarn… Unfortunately, I blindly drafted it all and then spun it from the end using a short forward draw. My resulting yarn came out a slightly disappointing dirty green colour. I achieved this muddy result due to optical blending - when two or more small areas of colour are repeated, very close together, the eye doesn’t perceive them as separate colours, but instead blends them together. Plotting the colours from Over the Rainbow on a colour wheel If I’d actually stopped to think about it, basic colour theory would have told me that any blend that contains colours from all the way around the colour wheel will inevitably turn out to be just a little bit brown or grey, if it’s not spun with the intention of maintaining larger areas of each colour, so that the eye still sees each shade in its original hue, when it’s spun and plied into the final yarn. Helpfully, World of Wool lists the individual colours in the Over the Rainbow blend. When you see them separated out like this, it’s not surprising that my finely drafted singles ended up a dirty green colour. Without the red, I probably would have got a fresh green, but throw in its opposite colour and things begin to turn brown. Since my first and only experience of “spinning mud,” I’ve been very cautious to only buy blends made from analogous shades - colours that sit relatively close together on the colour wheel, so that if they were all mixed together you wouldn’t get grey or brown, but a heathered, richer shade of the sum of all the colours. I’ve been playing it safe. Well, my fibre preparation skills have improved quite a bit over the last few years, and so I’ve decided to play around a little and experiment with a few different methods of spinning a multi-coloured blended top. Since the unfortunate incident with the Over the Rainbow fibre blend, I’ve learned that the two most popular methods deployed to avoid spinning mud are to either spin from the fold, or to tear off strips so that you are spinning from a reduced number of colours. I’ve got a couple of other methods that I’d like to try, but basically, I’m just going to have fun playing around with coloured fibres to see what I come up with. I’ve had the idea for this post for some time now, and when I was taking a look at the secret “Mill Members” page of John Arbon Textiles I found the perfect fibre blend for this project. This is “Midsommar” by John Arbon. It seems to be made up of turquoise, black, orange, red, and a tiny dash of yellow and white. Just the fact that it contains quite a bit of both turquoise and orange tells me that there’s a good chance that my yarn will end up brown if I’m not careful. A quick way to get an idea of what kind of optical blend I would get is to blend the colours digitally beforehand… The central rectangle selection of the fibre image has been blurred in Procreate … and yes, it looks like there is a very good chance of ending up with a dull grey/brown. This could be challenging. Each single will later be chain-plied with relatively short chains to finish it, as this is the easiest way of increasing the chance of getting the different colours to pool with themselves. The control - lashing onto a hackle I’m going to begin by intentionally blending the fibres together by randomly throwing them onto my hackle and then dizzing off a thin roving. This will give me a yarn with quite a thorough blend of colours, and it will be useful to compare my later yarns with. If I were to draft out all of the blended top, and then spin from the end, I imagine that I would get a very similar colour effect. Here’s the hackle blended yarn. It’s quite an attractive, heathered brown shade, and I love how, when you look closely, you can see the turquoise and orange shades. However, there’s no denying that it’s a long way from the bold, contrasting blended top that I started with. Control yarn knitted sample #1 Spinning from the end, without pre-drafting With my first method, I drafted from the very tip of the blended top. Normally, I would predraft my fibres, but that would only thin out each colour, forcing me to spin from all of the colours at the same time. Working from undrafted top allowed me to spin for a while on the individual colours, before moving onto the next colour along. It took a little more concentration, but I think it was quite effective. I love the tweedy subtlety of this yarn - the orange and turquoise flecks are dotted around the mostly warm brown background. Control yarn and yarn spun from the end of undrafted top. #2 Spinning from the fold To spin from the fold, I pulled off a small section, that was just 10-15cm long. (I did try longer lengths, but the fibres tended to bunch up in my hand after a little while.) I then opened up the top and spread it across my index finger so that I could see as many of the different bands of colour as possible. I then spun from the centre of the fibres, effectively spinning the blended top from the side, so that the colours were mostly spun one after the other, rather than combined with each other. The resulting yarn appeared to be the most colourful, with the most barber poling, and the least colour mixing of all of the yarns. As I'd pulled off a shortish length of blended top, it also gave me the shortest individual lengths of colour variegation - which explains why there is so much more barber poling in this yarn than in any of the others. I can definitely see why this is a popular method for avoiding optical blending, as it was very little extra effort, once I’d worked out my preferred technique. Control yarn and yarn spun from the fold Personally, I think this spinning method would look better with a blended top that is made up of analogous shades as the colour changes were much more sudden in the knitted sample, than in any of the others. It is still a very pretty yarn though. Here's a video of me 'spinning from the fold' in a little more detail. #3 Splitting the top vertically into a reduced number of colours, and then breaking each section up to distribute it throughout the yarn The Midsommar top, was really quite well blended, which made splitting it vertically challenging. My goal was to split the blended top into sections that contained just one or two colours, but unfortunately, some of the colour sections were so thin that I was either spinning from sections that barely needed any drafting, or it just wasn’t possible to divide it into sections that wouldn’t turn brown. It was also a little more effort than the previous 2 spinning methods. It did give me quite long sections of colour though, compared to some of the other spinning methods. Control yarn and top split vertically yarn This yarn felt much more designed than the previous yarns. Although I spun the colours randomly, for speed, I could have arranged them into a gradient, or had longer or shorter colour changes if I had a specific project in mind. This method definitely has a lot of possibilities. This was one of my favourite yarns, so I made a video of how I made it. #4 Drafting onto a blending board and then spinning from 3 rolags. In this method, I drafted the fibre onto the blending board, trying to keep each coloured layer the same. I then pulled off 3 rolags from the blending board, drafting them off as I rolled. In retrospect, I think it was quite optimistic of me to hope that carefully putting down 4 layers of fibre on top of each other would ensure that all of the individual colours would stay together during spinning. As you can see, they mostly merged together, with the odd pop of colour here and there. Control yarn and 4 layers drafted onto a blending board yarn The resulting yarn was quite subtle, with the odd fleck of colour on a mostly brown background. #5 Drafting thickly onto a blending board and then spinning from 1 large rolag After realising that adding lots of thin layers resulted in a lot more blending of colours, I decided to try something slightly different. This time, I only slightly drafted the fibres onto the blending board in just a couple of layers. I then pulled all of the fibre off in one, large rolag. Whenever I've seen anyone using a blending board in the past, I've always wondered why they don't pull off just a single rolag, instead of splitting it into two or more. I'd never tried it myself, but as this was definitely a time to play and experiment, I decided to give it a try to see what difference it made. The resulting rolag looked like it had so much potential and promise, but sadly, it was probably the least fun to spin. The fibres, being wound thickly, took much more effort to draft. It was also impossible to stop the colours from blending as they all seemed to want to be drawn out of the centre of the rolag at once. If I were to class any of the yarns as a fail, this would be it. Control yarn and yarn spun from a single, fat rolag There is a hint of orange in the cast-on edge, and the odd pop of colour here and there, but it's overwhelmingly brown. It was an interesting learning experiment, but I won't be trying it again. #6 Opening up the top so that the individual colours lie next to each other in a single layer, and then drafting off four rolags Well, we learn so much more from our mistakes than our triumphs, and for my third attempt at using the blending board, I worked out a method that really worked for me. I'd already learned that the more layers I draft onto the blending board, the more likely they are to blend together during spinning, so this time I decided not to draft the fibres on at all. I simply opened up the blended top so that I could see as many of the individual colours as possible, broke it off and then carefully attached it to the blending board with my blending brush. Having already learned that one thick rolag was definitely not a good idea, I drafted off four separate, thin rolags. The thin rolags were a little more delicate, but the fibres drafted smoothly from them, the colours blending from one to another easily. This turned out to be one of my favourite yarns, not just in appearance, but by how easy it was to prepare and spin. It was a joy, and I ended up spinning more of this yarn than any of the others. Control yarn and yarn spun from a single, undrafted layer Aesthetically, it's quite similar to the yarn that was spun from the fold, but the colours are just a little bit more muted and the colour changes appear a little less sudden. #7 Opening up the top so that the individual colours lie next to each other in a single layer on the blending board, and then drafting off with a diz After my success with a single undrafted layer, I decided to see the difference dizzing the fibre off would make. The fibres were laid down on the blending board in the same way as method 6. Just in this animated gif, you can see that several colours are being pulled off at once, which is definitely going to result in a lot more optical blending. This was one of the more subtly coloured yarns that I spun. Control yarn and yarn dizzed off from a single layer There's a definite place for this understated yarn, and the pops of colour add interest to what is still quite a reserved yarn. #8 Opening up the top so that the individual colours lie next to each other in 3 layers on the blending board, and then drafting off with a diz The only difference between this and the previous yarn is that I laid the fibre on the blending board in 3 layers - attempting to colour match as I laid down the fibre. The fibre for this yarn was a little easier to diz off as it was laid more thickly on the blending board. Control yarn and yarn dizzed off from 3 layers It's still quite similar in appearance to the previous yarn, there are just slightly more areas of colour. #9 Tearing out each individual colour and arranging it in a gradient on the blending board, then drafting off 4 rolags This was by far the most time-consuming method of avoiding optical blending, but I think it's one of the most attractive. As the Midsommar blend was really quite well blended, I found myself pulling off very thin strands to arrange them on the blending board in such a way that they wouldn't all merge into brown. I did actually fill the blending board with a gradient twice - the second time took significantly less time than the first, so I imagine that this is a technique that would get quicker with practice. Having learned that thinner rolags are better for preventing colour blending, I pulled off four quite delicate, but very attractive rolags to spin from. Looking at the singles on the wheel, I love how the colours are very distinct and transition beautifully from one to the other. This resulting yarn looks like it might have been spun from a hand-painted top - but for a fraction of the price! Control yarn and yarn arranged in a gradient on a blending board Here, you can see that this yarn, unsurprisingly, has the longest of all the colour repeats. Like the yarn split vertically, this method has a lot of potential variations. This video shows me separating out the colours in a little more detail - ----- Gosh, I’ve learned so much, just allowing myself to play with fibre this past couple of weeks. I would highly recommend it! I’ve also fallen back in love with my blending board, now that I’ve learned different ways of using it to avoid spinning mud. As you can see, I've made four videos of the techniques that I think worked best, and you can find them, and other fibre-to-yarn videos on my YouTube channel here. If you've found this post useful, please pin it to Pinterest - it makes a big difference and really helps other spinners find it too. At this point, I normally suggest similar related blog posts, however, my list of spinning-related content is becoming a little unmanageable... If you'd like to read more blog posts about spinning and fibre preparation, please take a look at this page here where you will find links to all of my spinning and fibre articles. Thank you for reading, and happy spinning! Some of my Other Spinning Related Posts Spinning into Focus Linear Blending a Gradient Hackle Blending a Long Gradient Blending and Spinning a Rainbow Yarn 2 Ways Chain-Plying at the Wheel Versus Making a Chain-Plied Ball How to Measure Handspun Yarn Using an App Free Handspun Yarn Labels Spinning Dog Hair DIY Hackle DIY Mini Wool Combs 3D Printed Modular Lazy Kate Yarn Gauge Reference Tool for Hand Spinners Testing the Electric Eel Wheel Yarn Counter Prototype Spinning Supercoil Yarn Using Waste Fibres Unbiased Review of the Daedalus Sparrow Testing the LWS Autowinder for the Electric Eel Wheel 6 Spinning a Complex Fractal 3 Ply Yarn ---------- Please be sweet and share the love. Leave a comment, subscribe to my YouTube channel, like my Facebook page for regular updates or follow me on Pinterest, Bloglovin' or Instagram

Make Your Own Yarn Winder for Center Pull Balls: I have been looking for a ball winder to wind center-pull balls of yarn. After reading many reviews of commercially made winders, it seems that all of them have something wrong with them. So I decided to make my own. It is not perfect, but I made it…

Based in Ashburton, New Zealand, Ashford Handicrafts are the world’s leading manufacturers of Spinning Wheels, Weaving Looms and other textile equipment and supplies.

I was reading a discussion of plying on Julia's blog and thought I would write a little about plying and twist angle since I couldn't stick a picture in her comments! When you ply singles that are freshly spun you can hold up a loop of yarn and see if it twists in either direction. If it hangs straight or nearly straight then you have a balanced ply. However, if your singles are even a few minutes old, some of the twist energy has been set. That's because the friction and the scales are sort of interlocking a little bit...

A nifty tool to manage your fiber

If you are brand new to spinning your own yarn, you may find yourself getting frustrated or confused. This video will clear much of that up for you!

Spinning an Alpaca Gradient Yarn Free Knitting Pattern for Handspun Yarn This project was spun on the Schacht Sidekick Spinning Wheel Sometimes the fiber tells us what yarn it wants to make, and sometimes we plan a spin from start to finish. When some local alpaca fiber came my way, I was inspired b

This is a 2.6oz art batt I made this batt blending merino wool, BFL and silk. I added colorful silk noil for texture and recycled sari silk thread fibers that make a wonderfully textured batt. Each batt also has lots of angelina and shinny corn fiber !! This batt would make a beautiful art yarn. You can also spin it and add it to your weaving. If felting is your thing, this would make a wonderful base for a scarf once you stretch out the fibers and arrange them to your liking. The last picture shows other batts in my shop.

Based in Ashburton, New Zealand, Ashford Handicrafts are the world’s leading manufacturers of Spinning Wheels, Weaving Looms and other textile equipment and supplies.

Minicombs are handheld tools with one or two rows of tines and are used for creating a worsted or semiworsted yarn.

Move over, sheep. Adios, alpacas. You don't need a pasture or hay to make soft, lovely yarn. You just need a dog.

A Fred Blystone Pic taken at Colonial Williamsburg Please understand that I am in no way claiming to be any sort of an expert in the textile arts, and what you are about to read is not meant as a tutorial. This posting, though informational about the crafts involved, is mainly meant to show how spinning and weaving and all that goes with it was a part of family life as well as community life of the 18th century. If you are an accomplished spinner or weaver, this post should still hold an interest, for it actually centers toward the reader who has an interest in the average daily occurrences of 18th century citizens, and thus, will hopefully help to give an idea of more of what went on inside many colonial homes. Thus, as mentioned, it is not a "how-to" guide, but a "how they did it" informational, for it was a process every man, woman, and child would be quite aware of, even if they didn't necessarily do it themselves. Now...what am I doing writing about spinning wheels and such? For the reasons mentioned as well as because I find it interesting; I enjoy watching my wife, Patty, spin at her wheel. It's as relaxing for me to watch her work such a craft as it is for her to do it. And because I am the one who coerced my constantly crocheting wife to take up the spinning hobby, something she spoke of often everytime we would see it done at museums, which she now loves doing herself (thank you very much! lol). I also personally own a Saxony wheel and two great wheels along with a clock reel. Much of what I have written in this week's post comes directly from those who were there; the men & women of the 18th century who were involved in the textile crafts/trade of the period. It's their words that make up the most interesting part (to me) of the text. The rest came from a variety of other sources, of which I have listed at the bottom. Throughout this post I have placed definitions of words for those of us who are novices, to help in the understanding the entries in the journals and diaries. Thank you for taking the time to read this. I do appreciate it. ............................................. ~Included in this posting are photographs I've taken upon visiting the 1700s Daggett breakback (saltbox) farmhouse and the Weaving Shop - both located inside Greenfield Village - as well as a couple from my own non-historic pseudo colonial-style home. Also, most notes and explanations here come from the published works of a few historical researchers, to help bring the entire process - and its time - vividly to life~ ............................................. A distaff~ Did you know that spinning on a spinning wheel has its own special day? Traditionally, the first Monday after January 6 - Epiphany (which is the day after 12th Night – the 5th of January), was called Plow Monday because it was the day when men returned to their plows, or daily work, following the Christmas Holiday. It was customary at this time for farm laborers to draw a plow through the village, soliciting money for a "plow light," which was kept burning in the parish church all year. Sometimes falling on the same day as Plow Monday was Distaff Day (January 7). This was when women were expected to return to their spinning following the Christmas tide. A distaff is the staff that women used for holding the flax or wool in spinning. Hence, the term "distaff" refers to women's work or the maternal side of the family. This ancient verse captures the spirit of both long-forgotten special January days: “Yule is come and Yule is gone and we have feasted well; so Jack must to his flail again and Jenny to her wheel.” And this is how we will begin today's post. Using the great wheel Regular readers of Passion for the Past know I love to write and study on everyday life of long ago, especially 18th and 19th century. That includes minor details or what some haughty historians may call unimportant history. To me, no history is unimportant, especially in the home life department. In fact, that's the area that interests me most. I've also learned that nothing is black and white; there are mostly gray areas. Never say never and never say always is a good lesson to know and accept - perhaps the most important of lessons - when studying and researching history. And that truism goes well with this posting on the textile arts and homelife. According to author Alice Morse Earle in her wonderful book, Home Life in Colonial Days, the wool industry easily furnished home occupation to an entire family. Often by the bright firelight in the early evening every member of the household might be seen at work on the various stages of wool manufacture or some of its necessary adjuncts, and varied and cheerful industrial sounds fill the room. The grandmother, at light and easy work, is carding the wool into fleecy rolls. The mother, stepping as lightly as one of her girls, spins the rolls into woolen yarn on the great wheel. The oldest daughter sits at the clock-reel, whose continuous buzz and occasional click mingles with the humming rise and fall of the wool-wheel, and the irritating scratch, scratch, scratch of the cards. A little girl at the small wheel is filling quills with woolen yarn for the loom, not a skilled work. The father is setting fresh teeth in a wool card, while the boys are whittling hand-reels and loom spools. So let's talk about the basics; we must understand that, for the most part, domestic textile production in the colonies, especially New England, centered on bed and table linen; linen for shirts, shifts, petticoats, aprons, and summer pantaloons; coarse woolens for work clothing for men and boys; and a variety of linen and woolen garments for infants and young children. During the American Revolutionary War, homespun textiles were associated with domestic necessity and patriotism, as the idea of American independence was merged with self-sufficiency, which was often expressed as a goal. Printed in the September 1, 1788 edition of the Hampshire Gazette from Northampton, Massachusetts, a farmer wrote of their self-sufficiency. In part, he stated: "nothing to wear, eat, or drink was ever purchased," and that they "never spent more than ten dollars a year, which was for salt, nails, and the like." He wrote that when his first daughter was to be married, she had been "a working, dutiful girl, and therefore I fitted her out well and to her mind; for I told her to take of the best of my wool and flax, and to spin herself some gowns, (petti)coats, stockings, and shifts; nay I suffered her to buy some cotton, and make into sheets, as I was determined to do well by her." Daily life. You see, most people today are generally aware of what occurs inside the homes in which they live, whether the tasks or the chores are from fathers or mothers or children. Most will know the everyday routines of family members, from housework to relaxation time. It wasn't any different in generations past. In fact, I believe most people might be somewhat surprised to learn just how closely the families and friends during colonial and early Republic times worked together, showing just how much they needed each other to be successful in survival. What goes up must come down... And that is something I enjoy reading about - the 18th century friends & family working together in the home, including on the textile arts. Just as I have an interest in historic farming, for my ties to the agricultural past and all that goes with it run deep and strong and is centuries long, I've also had a fascination in the textile process of generations past. Going back into the 18th century, my 6th (and possibly 5th) great grandfather on my mother's side was, by trade, a weaver, and he had a loom. My multiple generational maternal great grandmothers, many who were Quakers, spun on spinning wheels. I believe the interests and maybe even the talents of my ancestors have been passed down through time, and I feel I am at least one of the recipients. (You see, I am a firm believer in this sort of DNA being passed down from generation to generation...maybe skipping some descendants and 'landing' in others. In fact, my very first Passion for the Past post back in November 2007 is about this very subject.) I also frequently visit Greenfield Village and the 18th century Daggett House, and the presenters there do such a remarkable job showing the way these particular crafts took place inside the home. This is where the interest for my wife and I was initially piqued. It helps, too, that my wife also spins and dyes (again, due to some cajoling from yours truly, I might add). Now, if you are a personal friend of mine or are a follower of this Passion for the Past blog (thank you!), you will know that I frequently visit Greenfield Village and especially the 1750 Daggett House. The presenters there do such a remarkable job showing 18th century life and seemingly bring that period alive, so I have included in this posting numerous photographs I've taken upon my visits to that rural farm home, as well as diary & journal entries from varying folks from the period, including Samuel Daggett himself. Also included are notes and explanations from some of the published works of a few historical researchers to help bring the entire process - and its time - vividly to life as well. Anyhow, let's take a peek into the world of the 18th century home textiles and witness the process that our brilliant ancestors, along with their family and friends, helped each other by working together. Part of the following information comes directly from the 18th century (italicised): Sheep-Shearing: Each spring, farmers sheared their flocks: (John Wily wrote in 1765) "The proper time to shear your sheep is in the increase of the moon, in May; and, if you have the conveniency, make a pen near some water course or pond, and wash your sheep before you shear them: As soon as they are washed turn them into a small enclosure that has plenty of grass, and let them run on it two or three days, or until you see the fatty or oily substance shedding amongst the wool. Then is the proper time to shear them, for that is a great preservation to the wool." Sorting: Early American wool sorters separated each fleece into two or three grades. Well-sorted wool made it easier to produce strong yarn and evenly woven cloth. As John Wily wrote: "As there are different sorts of wool on sheep, the neck being the finest, the belly next, the shoulders and thighs the coarsest, it will be proper the person employed to shear the sheep should carefully roll up each fleece by itself, turning it inside out, beginning at the neck part, and leaving out the shanks; that the person employed to sort the wool may with the greater ease separate the fine from the coarse, and likewise that which is suitable to be combed for worsted from that which will answer for other uses. After your wool is well culled or sorted, the fine from the coarse, then have it well washed; for if you wash your wool before it is sorted, it afterwards will be very difficult to separate the fine from the coarse as it ought to be." Scouring: The sheep protects its fleece by generating a greasy substance called suint. Suint can account for over have of the weight of a newly shorn fleece. The worker removed the suint by immersing the fleece in a tub filled with a mixture of stale urine and warm water. He then rinsed the wool in fresh water and set it upon racks to dry. Scouring required skill and attention to detail. A weak or cold solution would felt the wool into lumps of tangled fibers. As you can see, the raw sheep wool my wife was preparing for spinning was spread out all over. Most of the dirtiest work/cleaning was done outside in the yard, but some was done inside, which definitely gave our home that barnyard-fresh smell! No, she does not wear period clothing when spinning at home...except on special occasions. Picking: Scoured wool retains dirt, dung, straw, and other impurities; picking removes them. According to William Partridge (in his 18th century memories), "Since my remembrance, picking was altogether performed by women, who beat it with rods, on hurdles made for the purpose, which separated the dust from the wool, and opened the locks, and they afterwards picked out by hand all the lints, straws, or whatever larger filth might adhere to it." After picking, the workers spread the wool in layers on a clean floor, and sprinkled each layer with oil in order to blend the fibers and make them pliable. Carding wool with carding paddles Carding: The purposes of carding are to blend, clean, and join the woolen fibers into a continuous mass which can be spun into yarn. In pre-industrial America, clothmakers carded by inserting portions of wool between two wire-studded boards and stroking them against each other. This action combed the wool, blended the fibers, and joined them into a continuous strand called a rolag. In this form, the wool could readily be spun into yarn. Carding was a monotonous and time-consuming task which required little strength or skill. Housewives often carded in their spare time or assigned the task to the children. Oftentimes, an elderly and feeble family member may also take on the job. Henry Wansey said in 1790. "Every housewife keeps a quantity of these cards by her to employ her family in the evenings when they have nothing to do out of doors." Spinning: Those who spun made yarn and thread by twisting the fibers of the prepared wool or flax into varying sizes to give that weak rolag strength as yarn. This was a task entrusted to the women and girls of early America. It's been noted that few farmhouses lacked a wheel. The large spinning wheels are known as the great wheel, the wool wheel, or the walking wheel. The Clock Reel: Used to measure the yarn. After spinning, the yarn was unwound from the wheel's spindle and wound on the clock reel (also known as a yarn winder) and measured for length. Clock reels employed a series of gears to trigger a noise making device when a certain amount of yarn had been wound. Skein: a length of yarn or thread wound on a clock reel. Spinning on a Saxony wheel... Spinning was a universal female occupation, a "domestic" duty, integrated into a complex system of neighborly exchange. Using the spinning wheel for spinning wool and flax has been seen as an essential expression of a woman's devotion to her home and family. It also shows self-sufficiency. The findings of Jane C. Nylander (author of the book "Our Own Snug Fireside") differ a bit from what others have said, for she writes that in the colonial period, perhaps half of all households owned spinning wheels (rather than a majority), and in some areas fewer than 10 percent owned looms, raised sheep, or cultivated flax. She has also stated that in many farmhouses there may only be a single great wheel on which the wool from a small flock of thin sheep was spun for stocking yarn. As I combed through numerous books and internet sites, there tends to be some disagreement on the information for who had and who did not have spinning wheels. For those who lived in the city, such as Boston, it seems that chances are they may not have had a need for a wheel and could purchase items from stores, whereas those who lived further from a big town or city may had been more likely to have a wheel in their home. Some of this is referenced in the account books of Samuel Daggett, builder and original owner of the 1750 Daggett farmhouse (now inside historic Greenfield Village). It seems as if this jack-of-all-trades farmer found spinning wheels to be omnipresent in people's lives in his own rural Connecticut community of Coventry. He was a housewright and woodworker (and farmer and dentist) and was called upon to repair many items belonging to his neighbors, including spinning wheels and spinning wheel parts. Here are a few entries taken from the account book of Samuel Daggett: November 9, 1757 ~14 yds. flannel cloth and half at 2 1/2 pr. Yard - to Beriah Loomis April 16, 1750 - making a woolen wheel for Rebeckah Gibbs A couple of wheels and a reel in need of repair in a 2nd floor room of Daggett's own house. January 18, 1760 and February 24, 1764 - mending a wheel for Ephram Shalfer's widow and Wid. Sarah Loomis. February 9, 1761 - spool and fliers to a wheel for Joseph Clark January 1766 - a pair of fliers to a little wheel for Joseph Clark Daggett wrote, in relation to the textile arts: ~setting a come (comb?) and setting a worsted comb for Jacob Lyman Also in the Daggett account book is of him selling flaxseed, probably to the local linseed oil mill (the Andover Society history says there was a local "oil mill"). Yes, there are plenty more entries of this type. I have a copy of his journal and these are but a few of what I found while quickly glancing through the pages. Mr. Daggett certainly knew how to earn a living. One of my great wheels is not pictured, though my Saxony is here, as is my clock reel. Before the textile industry of New England grew, for eventually the region was known for its textile mills, most was produced in the home. The production of fabric first required raw materials: fleece from sheep, flax, cotton, or silk. Cotton was not to reign as king until the 19th century, and silk was not very successful and its cost was relatively high. But wool and flax were inexpensive local products. Men & boys also had a share in the textile and spinning process. According to "Our Own Snug Fireside," their jobs consisted of: ~tending sheep ~shearing sheep ~combing wool ~breaking, scutching, and hackling flax and hemp ~learning the rudiments of sewing and mending Women & girls, for their part, would: ~grow flax and hemp and harvest when it was ready ~spin fibers into yarn or thread ~may do some home weaving ~dye the yarn or thread using natural dyes and techniques ~sew and knit ~mend & repaired textile items Process chart for spinning wool. Spinning (and weaving) required nimble fingers, quite difficult in the wintertime in a room with no fire. Julia Smith from Connecticut, faced with a quantity of wool to spin on such a day, made a fire in the small room in which to spin and asked to have her great wheel moved into the warming space. Hired girls carried much of the responsibility for spinning. From Sarah Emery: "Aunt kept a hired girl through the year. In the summer she helped in the dairy and housework, but her chief employment was spinning." In February of 1780, Mrs. Ebenezer Parkman hired two women for one week to spin. Sarah Bryant usually warped and set the looms, but the hired girls did all of the spinning and much of the routine weaving. Here is a video I filmed at the 18th century Daggett Farmhouse inside Greenfield Village on spinning by way of the great wheel: From the diary of ten-year-old Anna Green Winslow, from Boston: Valentine Day 1772 My cousin Sally reeled off a 10 knot skane of yarn today. My valentine was an old country plow-joger. The yarn was of my spinning. Aunt says it will do for filling. Aunt also says niece is a whimsical child. February 18, 1772 Another ten knot skane of my yarn was reel'd off today. Aunt says it is very good. Now, I am not going to get too deep into the wool dyeing process, but I would like to show you some of the basics of the ancient technique. The pictures you see here are of the ladies of the Daggett House, for every November they will spend a weekend dyeing the wool they spin. The process actually starts about six weeks earlier when the presenters begin collecting nature to use as the dye. Searching for walnuts... In the photo below you can see, to the left, a portion of the exterior of the Daggett House, built by Samuel Daggett around 1750 and represented inside Greenfield Village from the 1760s. Most, but not all, of the pictures herein were taken inside this beautiful example of a breakback/saltbox house. I followed this historical interpreter around for a bit as we spoke of the different naturals dyes available all around us and the colors they could make. On this day she was collecting walnuts for a deep brown. There was a squirrel up in one of the trees who wasn't very pleased, for it kept on tossing them down upon us, but luckily missing with each. I would hate to get knocked on the head by one of these buggers! For only being out for a short while, she didn't do too bad. Plants, roots, and nuts used to make dye The dyeing of wool is an annual presentation that Greenfield Village has every fall at the Daggett House. Even though my wife also dyes wool in the same manner, I still try not to miss it here. The presenters will walk the visitor through every step... Boiling water on a dry day works perfectly, for dyes can be quite messy. To make red, cochineal beetles are used (yes, beetles!). To think if someone wanted a bit of color on their cloth, this was to be done. And here is the indigo for blue (although, due to the clouds, it looks more black than deep blue). Click to see and hear the dyeing process from a Daggett presenter: In the basket you can see previously dyed wool - just see how vibrant the colors are. In all honesty, I have to laugh when I hear of people using Kool Aid or something along those lines to dye their wool. Especially if the wool was cleaned and carded by hand. Below you will see the types of natural dyes used for the wool and what the wool looks like: Blue: Before indigo became available in Europe in the late 16th century, woad was the primary source of blue dye. But indigo, due to its ability to produce an extensive range of beautiful blue shades, is considered to be the most the most successful dye plant ever known. Osage Orange: Osage orange is a native of the south-central US and is widely planted in the eastern states/colonies as well. Black Walnut: If you want a beautiful brown, look no further than your local neighbor's yard, or maybe even your own yard. Madder Root: Is one of the most ancient dyes and can be traced back to around 3000 BC., and comes from the madder plant. This is but a very few of the many natural dyes that were used by our 18th century ancestors. Here is their wool from 1765...I mean...hmmm... Just what year are we in? Yes, there I am, personally checking out just how wonderful the quality of the newly-dyed yarn was. The crafts and chores that our forefathers and mothers did back in the 18th century makes me appreciate them with each new bit of knowledge I gain about their lives. The knit hat I am wearing here was from raw wool. My wife went through the entire process, including dyeing the wool after she spun it. The mittens I have on were also from raw wool. Again, my wife knitted them for me after carding, spinning & dyeing them. Spinning could be done in any room of the house - the great hall, the kitchen, or sometimes it would be done in a separate room of the home. And with that we can now segue onto the spinning of flax: Process chart for spinning flax. "I seek wool and flax and can work willingly with my Hands, and tho my Household are not cloathed with fine linnen nor scarlet, they are cloathed with what is perhaps full as Honorary, the plain and decent manufactory of my own family, and tho I do not abound, I am not in want. I have neither poverty nor Riches but food which is convenient for me and a Heart to be thankfull and content that in such perilous times so large a share of the comforts of life are allotted to me." Abigail Adams in a letter to John April 17, 1777 Abigail Adams In her own write--- Flax: is a plant which is grown for its fibers, which are used to make linen. Martha Ballard was a midwife who kept a daily diary of her life and the events that surrounded her from 1785 until shortly before her death in 1812. I took a few snippets from her daily diary notations that centered on the subject of flax. There were plenty more - plenty more - than what I have here. Some of the descriptions and explanations come from author Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, who we can thank for putting together the diary into book form. August 3, 1786, Thursday the Girls Pulld Flax. August 4, 1786, Friday Clear & Hott. we pulld flax. May 26, 1787, Saturday Polly Bisbee here. I combd 7-1/2 lb of flax for myself & 1/2 for Cyrus. May 28, 1787, Monday we Boild a Linning warp, 55 Skeins. June 2, 1787, Saturday I quilld 7 Skeins of yarn. Wool preparation for spinning is more commonly seen today, and more often than not, that's what we usually will see in the museums. So I thought I would present a quick - very quick - lesson on flax (from the pamphlet The Textile Tools of Colonial Homes By Marion & Walter Channing) - - Flax is grown in the garden. Men begin the flax-production system in the spring, as Matthew Patton, a New Hampshire farmer, did on May 18, 1787, when he reported in his diary: "I sowed about 1 of a bushel of flax seed and I suppose near as many pease." The very same day, 150 miles away in Hallowell, Maine, Martha Ballard's husband was engaged in similar work: "Clear...Mr. Ballard ploughed flax in," she wrote. Since the seed was light, it took skill to distribute it evenly and well. "I wed flax," Ballard wrote on June 16, 1788, a month after her husband completed sowing. Her patch of flax was an extension of her garden. Patton's crop was larger. With three quarters of a bushel he could have seeded half an acre. Just before it matures, it is pulled from the ground, roots and all. The harvest began the last week of July or the first week of August and lasted three or four days. "Finished pooling flax," Patton wrote. Ballard and her daughters usually did their own pulling, lifting the plants carefully by the roots, holding the stems as straight as possible to avoid tangling, then stacking them in neat bundles for later processing. Sometimes they were spreading cloth made from last year's crop on the grass to bleach while they were harvesting the new one. Growing flax and turning it into linen for clothes requires growing a variety suitable for fiber to spin. My wife and I pulled flax that was grown from seed. The seeds are removed once the plant is dried (called rippling). Roy holds flax before the spinning preparation begins. The plant is then submerged in water in order to rot the useless part of the plant. This is called retting. The flax is then spread on the grass (called dew retting). Once the plant is dry, the next step occurs, which is using the flax break: A flax break is used to start the process of separating the line fiber from the shives (or core and bark). A large bundle is centered at the hinge (or wider) end of the break; the upper meshes with the lower and comes down with a bang upon the flax which is struck as it gradually moves to the smaller end. One can see this would do a rather thorough job of breaking the useless part, which was often used to fill the straw tick of the trundle bed. Let's move on to the next step: scutching. After using the flax break, the remains are then scutched to remove more broken shives from the tough line fiber. A man or a bigger boy grasps a bunch of flax and holds it over the board and proceeds to beat it with a wooden scutching knife to remove still more of the useless part as well as make it finer. Tow - the fiber of flax prepared for spinning by scutching. Now it's time to use the hackle: "I am heshling flax." Molly Cooper November 15, 1769 "I have hatcheled 14 pounds flax from the swingle." Martha Ballard March 16, 1795 "I have been carding tow." Martha Ballard March 24, 1797 The hackle (or "heckle") is one scary looking but important tool, for hackling is the last of the three steps in preparing the flax fibers to be spun. It splits and straightens the flax fibers, as well as removes the fibrous core and impurities. Flax is pulled through the hackling spikes (also referred to as combs), which parts the locked fibers and straightens them, cleans them, and prepares them for spinning. In her book, Home Life in Colonial Days, written in 1898, Alice Morse Earle says that the fineness of fiber after hackling depended on the number of hackles used, the fineness of the combs, and the person doing the hackling. She writes that after the first coarse hackle, six other hackles were used, in varying degrees of fineness. If you have three hackles, coarse, medium, and fine, you will be doing well. The presenters at Greenfield Village do a wonderful job in their flax presentation. Before spinning, the flax needs to be "carded." No...no carding paddles are used. Instead, the flax is sort of fanned out on a table, a few pieces at a time, all laying out in the same direction, and making sure to remove any knots or small bunched up pieces. This is a fairly long and tedious process. "Carding" Flax Once it has been "finger carded" (as I call it), the flax is nearly ready to be spun - only one more step: getting it on the distaff. Begin by setting the distaff to one end... ...carefully wrap the flax onto the distaff by rolling it. Once it's on, it should be loosely tied, sometimes with a ribbon. The flax processing is done, the distaff replaced onto the spinning wheel, and now can be spun. In Brattleboro, Vermont, Mary Palmer Tyler, recalling to her children the memories of her early days of growing up in the 18th century, wrote: A wool wheel up front, and spinning flax in the back. It is almost like being in the company of Anna Daggett. She continued, "Our sheep furnished wool, and we raised flax. I spun all the thread I used for years, whitening some, and coloring some, and some keeping flax color. I hired a girl to spin what I wanted wove, and the tow also, with which we made cloth for sheets and common table linen. Mrs. Peck could weave very nice diaper, which we bleached at home. After she left us, Mrs. Fischer did my weaving, but having to give nine pence a yard for the weaving, I suggested to your father the expediency of getting a loom, and having our flax and wool wove in the house. Ever ready to comply with my wishes, he got one immediately, and for twelve or fifteen years we made the children's clothes summer and winter for common wear." "All this time my spinning wheels were busily attended by myself with the assistance of one and at times two girls." More excerpts from the diary of ten-year-old Anna Green Winslow, from Boston: February 9, 1772 ...my right hand is in bondage (wrapped), my left is free; & my aunt says, it will be a nice opportunity if I do but improve it, to perfect myself in learning to spin flax. I am pleased with the proposal & am at this present, exerting myself for this purpose. I hope, when two, or at most three months are past, to give you ocular demonstration of my proficiency in this art, as well as several others. February 22, 1772 I have spun 30 knots of linning yarn... Many farmers sold their flax and bought imported linen cloth. Linen production was highly skilled and time-consuming work. Here are two wonderful video clips on flax: Here is the second: The flax on the distaff. Now the flax is ready to be spun on the spinning wheel and then, perhaps, woven on a loom. On an interesting side note, through details of Colonel John Gage’s inventory from 1773 we can estimate the value of flax in various stages of production. A pound “from the break” was worth a quarter of a shilling, combed flax two, and a pound spun as “fine warp” almost eight shillings. This leads us into weaving: "Polle gon to carre yarne to the weaver." Molly Cooper April 29, 1773 Weaving looms, because of their size and bulkiness, were usually set up in a large, unfinished (usually unheated) space, like an attic, shed, or unoccupied bedchamber. Sometimes the loom may have been set up in a room called a "weaving room." Professional weavers set up looms in an "ell" room of the house or a small building near the house. Picture of a woman using a loom courtesy of Colonial Williamsburg Here are some basic terms for weaving on a loom, beginning with the loom itself: A loom is a hand-operated device used to weave cloth. The loom containing harnesses, lay, reed, shuttles, treadles, etc., in making the cloth. The basic purpose of any loom is to hold the warp threads under tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads. The precise shape of the loom and its mechanics may vary, but the basic function is the same. Here are other words to know: Looms and Weavers: Each loom had at least two harnesses, through which the warp threads were passed. By stepping upon the treadles connected to the harnesses, the weaver lifted them up and down, creating a passage in the warp for the shuttle. The shuttle was thrown side to side by hand. After each passage of the shuttle, the weft (yarn) was driven into the cloth by means of the beater. Weaving: On the loom, the weave makes cloth by interlacing hundreds of feet of yarn in a grid-like pattern. Pieces of yarn stretched lengthwise on the loom, called the warp threads, are lifted in a pre-arranged order. The weaver passes a single strand of yarn, called the weft thread, through this arrangement of warp threads. The process is repeated thousands of times in order to weave a few yards of cloth. Warp - the long threads that run from the front to the back of the loom. This required skill and patience from the weaver. The warp thread is the thread that is strung over the loom vertically, and holds the tension while you weave. This is the backbone of your weave. Weft - is thread drawn through and inserted over-and-under the warp, side to side Diaper - a type of weaving design that was repeated continuously on the fabric Quilling: For weaving, quills are short tubes fashioned from hollow reeds and were used by the weaver's spouse or children to wind the wool yarn upon, then the weaver would insert the loaded quill in the shuttle - the boat-shaped vessel which carried wool through the openings in the warp. "The weaver is provided with a quill-girl, whose province is to prepare and supply him with thread or yarn, viz, the wool, which she winds up." (from Universal Magine - London 1749) Dressing the Cloth - The Fuller: Three skills were essential in dressing the cloth: the most important was fulling, whereby the cloth was cleansed to eliminate oils, dirt, and other impurities, and making it thicker. It was also shrunk and beaten in the process. The worker who does this job is a fuller, tucker, or walker, all of which have become common surnames. Next comes--- The Napper: After fulling, the nap of the cloth was raised by the napper to give it a lustrous appearance. He would use large burrs called teasels to raise the fibers of the cloth, thereby improving its "feel." The teasels pulled the fibers without breaking them. Napper were few and far between in America, according to the loom manual in the collections of The Henry Ford, and would often use wire-studded hand cards to nap the cloth, a practice which resulted in poorly finished woolens. Following the napper we next go to----- The Shearer: This was another skilled practice. It was the shearman who clipped the excess nap and imparted an even texture to the cloth. Years of practice were necessary to use the heavy and clumsy shear tool with skill. The craftsmen operated his shears, which weighed upward of 40 pounds, while holding them a fraction of an inch above the cloth. This distance had to be maintained for the cloth's texture to remain even. At times, lately around the Christmas tide, a replicated 18th century loom will be brought into the great hall of the colonial Daggett House as part of the Holiday Nights presentation. In honor of William Raby, my 6th great grandfather who was a weaver back in the 1700s (as I mentioned), I had my image taken in front of the loom sitting inside the great hall of the Daggett home. I like to think there might be some similarities between he and I---clothing, for one (lol). And since another line of my ancestors - for instance, my 5th great grandfather Jonathan Heacock - were Quakers, perhaps this picture might be suitable as well: That's me standing near the fly shuttle loom inside the Weaving Shop. Not unlike the Daggett household, the home of Martha Ballard was a nest of economic enterprise. Everyone worked. Martha Ballard's husband, Ephraim, surveyed, drew his maps, wrote his survey reports, met clients, collected taxes, farmed, and cut wood for the household. Martha grew and prepared herbs and simples, practiced midwifery, treated the ill, knitted, made and mended much of the family's clothing, and attended to her housework. The boys farmed, cut wood and timber, and helped at the mills. When the girls were old enough, Martha brought in a loom for weaving, and the family launched into textile production. Fly shuttle loom inside the Weaving Shop of Greenfield Village (From the book A Midwife's Tale): Weaving had evolved from a full-time men's occupation to part-time women's work. Not all women wove nor did all women spin. Instead, community networks of women bought and traded fibers, labor, skills, and finished goods to acquire cloth for their families' clothing. With this knowledge at hand, we see an economy characterized by family production; neighbor women taught the Ballard girls to weave, so Martha Ballard not only employed her daughters, Hannah and Dolly, and her nieces, Pamela and Parthenia, but a succession of hired helpers like Hannah Cool and Polly Savage. Women with looms borrowed and loaned equipment, such as the parts of looms called slays. In Martha's diary we see many such daily exchanges. She relied on married neighbors like Jane Welch or Hannah Hamlin to help her inexperienced girls warp the loom, the girls in turn weaving for other families in town. Though she grew her own flax, all the cotton she spun (and until 1790, the wool as well), was gotten in trade with neighbors. The production of cloth wove a social web. In Martha's diary we see many such daily exchanges. From Martha Ballard's Diary: May 19, 1787, Saturday Cyrus Brot the bars and other utencils for weaving home. May 21, 1787, Monday Evinng. mr Savage made the irons for our Loome. I paid him 4 Shillings in Cash. May 24, 1787, Thursday we warpt a webb of 42 yds Linnin. mr Ballard been fixing the loome. May 25, 1787, Friday Dorkis Pollard here to warp a piece. mr Ballard fixing the loom. Hannah Coll Sett the webb to work. To show how men and women of the household worked like a well-oiled machine, one only needs to understand the social web to keep everything running smoothly. Just like the men, New England women had long been engaged in barter and trade. The skein of linen warp that Martha gave Mrs. Savage on September 9, 1788 (see below) symbolizes the household production that characterized pre-industrial life, the neighborly trade that made such production possible: September 1788 3 - Mrs. Savage warpt a piece here. 5 - Dolly finisht her web 44 1/2 yards 9 - Mrs. Savage here. Shee has spun 40 double skeins for me since April 15th and had a Bushl of ashes & some phisic for James, and Dolly wove her 7 yds of Diaper. I let her have 1 skein of lining warp. The whole is 6/ X. 10 - We brewed. Dolly winding the warp for Check. 11 - Dolly warpt a piece for Mrs. Pollard of 39 yards. 12 - Dolly warpt & drawd in a piece for Check. Laid 45 yards. I have been at home knitting. 13 - We spread the diaper out for whitening. In Martha's vocabulary, a "web" was a quantity of thread woven--or about to be woven--in a single piece, such as what Dolly did on September 5, 1788. Most textile entries in the diary document a personal relationship as well as a process: "Polly (Savage) wound & warpt & I drawd in Mrs. Williams webb." "Hannah began to weave Cyrus' web." "Dolly finisht Mrs. Porters webb." "Mrs. Welch (or Hamlin or Child or Pollard or Densmore or Savage) here this day to warp a webb." The Daggett loom being used during Holiday Nights. (Again, from A Midwife's Tale): The image can be extended. Imagine a breadth of checkered linen of the sort Dolly "warpt & drawd in" on September 12, 1788, half the threads of bleached linen, the other half "coloured Blue." If Dolly alternated bands of dyed and undyed yarn on the warp in a regular pattern, white stripe following blue stripe, then filled in the weft in the same way, alternately spooling both bleached yarn and blue, the resulting pattern would be a checkerboard of three distinct hues. Where white thread crossed white thread, the squares would be uncolored, where blue crossed blue the squares would be a deep indigo, where white crossed blue or blue crossed white the results would be a lighter, mixed tone, the whole forming the familiar pattern of plain woven "check" even today. In my opinion, Greenfield Village should employ a period-dress weaver in the Daggett house more often. So much history "looms" in such a presentation. ~(pun kind of intended)~ From A Midwife's Tale: Training in the textile arts was communal and cumulative, work was cooperative, even though performed in private households, and the products remained in the local community. The most experienced weavers extended the skills of their neighbors. A closer look at textile production in the Ballard family helps us to see the complexity of this system. When Martha began to write a diary in 1785, Hannah and Dolly already knew how to operate the great woolen wheel and the smaller flax wheel that the family owned. The women in the Ballard household produced textiles during the years before the girls married, for all the women in the Ballard household spun and prepared yarn and thread for weaving. The girls also learned to weave. They grew and harvested flax. The family's sheep gave wool. In the next two years they produced hundreds of skeins of cotton, wool, linen, and tow thread, most of which their mother carried to others to weave. In May of 1787, the family began assembling the equipment needed for weaving. Cyrus brought home "the bars & other utensils for weaving" on May 19, 1787, and a few days later his father spent part of a day "fixing the loom." Martha did her part by combing flax, "doubling yarn for the harness," and "quilling," while her husband fetched a kettle from the Savage house for "boiling a linen warp." Dorcas Pollard warped the loom for the first time on May 25, and Hannah Cool "set the webb to work." These two young women helped to instruct Hannah Ballard, who was responsible for the web of forty yards that came out of the loom on July 4. On July 5, in preparation for the next round of weaving, Martha went to Mrs. Savage's to borrow a "sleigh" (an implement for controlling the pattern of a weave). Unfortunately, Mrs. Williams had already taken the one she wanted. Two weeks later she was successful in getting another from Merriam Pollard. Not the Ballard house but probably somewhat similar. From A Midwife's Tale: Weaving gave the girls a useful skill and also contributed to the household income. Martha did not weave, but the girls wove while Martha was off practicing her midwifery. Sometimes they bought cloth and thread, and they bought raw cotton by the pound. Although Hannah and Dolly learned to weave, check, diaper, huckaback, worsted, dimity, woolen "shurting," towels, blankets, "rag coverlids," and lawn handkerchiefs, as well as "plain cloth," the exchanges with neighbors continued. Merriam Pollard continued to "instruct Dolly about her weaving" until the girls were able to return some of her services in kind, as on September 11, 1788: "Dolly warpt a piece for Mrs. Pollard of 39 yards." Trading fiber and yarn, borrowing tools and kettles, the Ballards contributed to their own self-sufficiency and strengthened their bonds with their neighbors. The intricacy of the textile network is suggested in a diary entry for April 20, 1790: "Cyrus borrowed a 40 sleigh of the widdow Coburn for Dolly to weav a piece for Benjamin Porter." That father, mother, daughters, and at least one son were all involved in setting up the weaving operation supports what I have been saying for years - that in early America men & women had to work in tandem in order to undertake any single life-sustaining chore. In the Greenfield Village Weaving Shop, a presenter works a fly shuttle loom. By expanding textile production, Martha provided household help for herself and an occupation for her girls. She was not the sort of woman to turn her daughters into household drudges, even if she could afford to. Hannah and Dolly needed skills to sustain their future families as well as ways to contribute to their own support in the present. Weaving was the perfect solution. It could be accomplished at home. It could be coordinated with other chores. It produced many of the items ---bedsheets, ticking, blankets, towels, and coverlets--- the girls would need in their future homes. The Ballards had worked out an efficient system. Yet the beginnings of mechanization foretold changes. As we know, mechanization would eclipse household textile production within the next generation. 18th century textile production The film of A Midwife's Tale and chapter two of the book of the same name deal with textile production. When a family of the 18th century, such as the Daggetts and perhaps the Ballards, wove inside their own homes, they could then take their woven cloth to the local fulling mill, where it would be finished - that is, treated with a type of clay called fuller's earth to cleanse the fabric, eliminating oils, dirt, and other impurities, then flood it with hot water to shrink and thicken it. In his account book, Samuel Daggett mentions making repairs at a local fulling mill. There could possibly be bartering involved to pay the fuller: ~John Paine---work about his fulling mill ~a tree for a stock to his fulling mill ~mending of his mill stock and wheel Mr. Daggett also sold some of his flannel cloth, which could have been from his loom; the flannel referred to is probably a "fulled" wool (or "linsey-woolsey"): October 1756 ~17 yds. flannel to david Carber at 2 Shillings per yard Now, a wide variety of high quality and colorful English textiles were imported and available for purchase, particularly in the larger towns. Of course, a much higher proportion of imported textiles were used by people in the larger towns than in the rural farm communities, but in many cases people desired these over their own coarse homemade products if they chose to spend their money in that manner. Some managed to barter their own homemade textiles for imported cloth. (Source: The Great River) On a side note: in Samuel Daggett's will from 1799, he bequeathed "the loom" to his wife. It is assumed this was a large item for him to mention it here specifically. It is not known when it was acquired or used by the family, but he was selling flannel cloth, which was probably woven on the loom, by 1756, and, of course, mentioned from then on. . . . Women in the American Colonies played a critical role in boycotting the importation of British goods in protest of increased taxation on everyday items. From Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s book, “The Age Of Homespun,” we learn the importance of their spinning shortly before the Revolutionary War: In the 1760s the effort to force the repeal of parliamentary taxes by boycotting English goods gave household production a new significance. In March, 1766, eighteen “daughters of liberty” met…to spin, dine without the pleasure of tear (this before the Boston Tea Party!) and declare as a body that the Stamp Act was unconstitutional, that they would purchase no more British manufacturers until it was repealed, and that they would spurn any suitor who refused to oppose it. Although Parliament repealed the Stamp Act, they replaced it with the odious Townsend Duties. Suddenly clergymen, militia captains, printers, politicians, and urban gentlewomen who had never before touched a spinning wheel took a new interest in household production. “Women determined the Condition of Men, by means of their spinning wheels.” Between March 1768 and October 1770, New England newspapers reported more than sixty spinning meetings held all along the coast from Maine to Long Island. Soon there were reports of large gatherings all along the coat of Massachusetts and into Rhode Island. One writer described the Daughters of Liberty “laudably employed in playing on a musical instrument called a spinning wheel, the melody of whose music, and the beauty of the prospect, transcending for delight, all the entertainment of my life.” A Rhode Island bachelor wrote that as soon as he found the swiftest spinner in the country he intended to marry her, “provided her other accomplishments be agreeable (provided likewise she will have me.)” Some of the gatherings were spinning matches, contests in which a few women spun a great deal of yarn. Others were spinning demonstrations, public events attracting large numbers of spectators. Most were what rural Americans would have called frolics, work parties to benefit a single household. And from American Spirit Magazine (Sept/Oct 2020): Patriotic fervor... Homespun textiles would become a necessity for Colonists on December 1, 1774, when the nonimportation agreement was signed into effect by the First Continental Congress. From that day on, the 13 Colonies would not import anything from Great Britain and would need to find a way to produce all the textiles they required. The task was daunting and became even more so when war was declared in 1775. Equipping an army with tents, blankets, and clothing seemed an impossible task at the time. After the war was won, textile trading and importation would resume. However, the homespun movement continued and homespun fabric would slowly decrease the reliance on imported textiles. A key moment in the history of the movement came on April 30 1789 at the swearing in of George Washington as the first President of the United States. Washington knew that wearing a suit made from imported fabric simply would not do. Instead, the soon-to-be first President chose a homespun, three-piece brown broadcloth suit made from fabric woven in Connecticut. . . . So, the colonial household was much more active than one would think. There was quite a bit of hustle and bustle occurring, and upon reading the diaries one can easily be drawn into their world. As I wrote in an earlier post, as soon as you start to think of the past as happening (as opposed to it having happened), a new way of conceiving history becomes possible. Our personal reactions to the challenges of living in another time - in this case, mid-to-late 18th century America - helps us to understand their time and even accept those from the past in a more enlightened way rather than with disdain, as seems to be so prominent in our modern times (because we in the 21st century are so enlightened!). It helps us to understand what makes one century different from another. Reading personal diaries and journals can make the difference. At least, it does for me. The day is done... And this is how we should respond to the past upon entering a historic house. Until next time, see you in time. ~ . ~ . ~ Postscript: Our granddaughter Addy checks out the great wheel. My wife has been crocheting pretty much her entire life. She is also a seamstress as well as a knitter - another craft she learned as a youth. And she has been spinning now for over a decade. The person that taught her was very surprised at how quickly she picked up on it. But everything yarn is in her blood. One of the things I think is very cool is that our children grew up with these ancient crafts, whether seen at Greenfield Village or at our own home. Yes, very similar to those whose diaries you just read. To think that my kids will one day tell their grandkids about their mother spinning on a spinning wheel makes me smile. But, even better yet, we now have grandchildren, and they will be able to tell their own grandkids about their grandmother spinning on a spinning wheel. How cool is that? Our grandson Liam also looks at one of our great wheels. And our grandson Ben helps out Nonna and is fascinated with her saxony spinning wheel. Young ladies in town, and those that live round, Let a friend at this season advise you: Since money's so scarce, and times growing worse, Strange things may soon hap and surprize you; First then, throw aside your high top knots of pride, Wear none but your own country linnen, Of Oeconomy boast, let your pride be the most To show clothes of your own make and spinning. What, if homespun they say is not quite so gay As brocades, yet be not in a passion, For when once it is known this is much wore in town, One and all will cry out, 'tis the fashion! And as one, all agree that you'll not married be To such as will wear London Fact'ry: But at first sight refuse, tell em such you do chuse As encourage our own Manufact'ry No more Ribbons wear, nor in rich dress appear, Love your country much better than fine things, Begin without passion, twill soon be the fashion To grace your smooth locks with a twine string, Throw aside your Bohea, and your green Hyson tea, And all things with a new fashion duty; Procure a good store of the choice Labradore, For there'll soon be enough here to suit ye; These do without fear and to all you'll appear Fair, charming, true, lovely and cleaver; Tho' the times remain darkish, young men may be sparkish And love you much stronger than ever. – "Young Ladies in Town," Boston Newsletter (1769) Sources: Everyday Life in Colonial America by Dale Taylor Our Own Snug Fireside by Jane C. Nylander A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard Based on her Diary by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich The Textile Tools of Colonial Homes by Marion L. Channing Home Life in Colonial Days by Alice Morse Earle The Age of Homespun by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich helped with some of the flax planting and harvesting information. Quite a bit of information here comes from the collections of The Henry Ford and their wonderful Benson Ford Research Center, which is the brain center of The Henry Ford Museum and Historic Greenfield Village. Historical information about the Village and Museum - every historic house, artifact, daily life information, automobiles, and everything else history - is here. Its collections form an unparalleled resource opportunity documenting the American experience. Yes, I go here often. John Wily pamphlet "A Treatise on the Propagation of Sheep, the Manufacture of Wool, and the Cultivation and Manufacture of Flax, with Directions for making several Utensils for the Business" printed in Williamsburg, VA, in 1765. The on-line site of Mother Earth News Also, a number of my spinning and weaving friends contributed and gave their approval as well. And here are a few related postings that you might find interesting: In The Good Old Colony Days - Every day life in the 18th century Cooking on the Hearth: The Colonial Kitchen - Preparing, cooking, eating in colonial times Bringing Historic Homes to Life: Daggett Saltbox House - Life in a colonial home A Colonial Christmas - Just how did they celebrate Christmas in the 18th century? A Colonial Thanksgiving - From the Puritans through the end of the 18th century New Year's in the 18th Century - Celebrating an early American New Year's Travel and Taverns - To help you understand what it was like to travel and stay at a tavern in colonial times. Living By Candle Light: The Light at its Brightest - Nighttime in the 18th century A Year on a Colonial Farm - Chores and activities from all four seasons are covered Winter in the Good Old Colony Days - How was it for our colonial ancestors in the cold? Spring - Celebrating the season of re-birth Summer Colonial Harvest - The most important time of year for a colonist, the Fall ~ ~ ~

I have always heard that wet finishing and thwacking your hand spun yarn can make a huge difference in how your final yarn feels and behaves in a project. Let's find the answer to the question, how much does thwacking change handspun yarn with an experiment.

By Benjamin Krudwig

To start spinning yarn on a budget, you can use a spindle, fiber, and DIY tools like a Niddy Noddy. If you like spinning, you might want to

If Vanessa could go back and give herself one piece of spinning advice, it would be this: Keeping good records is not a waste of time because you won’t remember everything about every skein of yarn that you’ve spun.

By Amelia © February 25, 2011 Wow! Madrona Fiber Arts Festival was a hoot! But more on that at the end... Last summer, I was contacted by a tapestry weaver about spinning some "3 ply yarn" for her. In fact, the yarn she wanted mimiced in handspun was Paternayan's, which has 3 strands or fingering-weight 2-ply loosely twisted together. And, her plan was to separate them to color-blend (tapestry weaving is so cool!) There was to be 10 pounds of fiber to be spun, from local sheep, locally dyed and milled at Taylored Fibers. 10 pounds. That didn't quite hit home until I (a) injured my foot in July, leaving me only e-spinning as a wheel choice and (b) got a temp job 4 days a week in September, which is still steaming along with a somewhat indefinite future. Now, this 10 pounds isn't like the normal production run you might do for a sweater: not all the same color, to be spun up and bobbin-swapped as needed to make the singles come out consistently. Not at all. This is 8 ounces of each color -- and we decided to do them 4 ounces at a time, so she would have each color as quickly as possible, with the second half coming later. So, I have to spin 4 ounces, ply it, repeat until done. How can it hope to remain consistent? Here are my tips: 1. Keep your sample card handy. Mine has actual Paternayan's (the source yarn to base everything on!) wound around it to see the twist angle in the ply, split into its singles and wound around it to see the diameter of the single, and fluffed out to see the fiber in the single. Every time I start a new color, and at random points as I spin that color, I compare back to that source yarn. At least once per ounce during the singles, and at the start of plying to make sure I have my rhythm right. 2. Focus. I don't drift off into conversations -- this fiber doesn't come with me to spin-ins, though the plying might, it's not as hard to get right. All spun at home. I've lost the thread of Stargate Atlantis entirely since I am paying more attention to the yarn than to the plot. 3. Use the same speed and tension each time. On my e-spinner, I set the dial the same; on my treadle wheel, I use the same ratio. And, I always back the brake band's tension off to soft-as-will-draw-on as I start each bobbin, since as the bobbin fills, the brake tension gets tightened bit-by-bit. Forget that, and the fiber yanks onto the flyer faster than I can say "boo!" 4. Use the same spinning style each time. If you start out spinning worsted, spin it all worsted. If you start out spinning with double-drafting, spin it all that way. Whichever method you pick, stick with it. This yarn, I spin with double-drafting. It's production spinning, and that's my fastest way to get the yardage on the wheel. For plying, I have been using The Gentle Art of Plying as my plying method, but recently re-learned Alden Amos' plying method (see my youTube video embedded here; it is described in his Big Book of Handspinning). Amos' plying method is continuous, always moving toward the wheel, which was gentler on my e-spinner and let it spin for longer before heating up the motor. I could do the whole 4-plus ounces in one sitting. It takes me about an hour to ply 4 ounces (400 yards) at 1200 rpm, close to top speed, on my e-spinner. [ For the techs out there .. that works out to 5 twists per inch. About right, for the ply twist for this yarn. ] 5. Measure and adjust. Not only do I work to stay on-task during the four ounces, but once it's done, I skein it up with a yardage meter (since I'm paid by the yard, it does double-duty). That tells me if I stayed in the target range. I should get about 100 yards an ounce. If it's too short, then it was too thick or too dense (spinning style - worsted is denser than woolen, or too much twist compacting it). If it's too long, then it was too thin or too airy (not enough twist will pouf out more in the plying). I make a note of the ones noticeably outside the target (over 10% off), and let the weaver know if a color might be a little thinner or thicker than the others, so she can compensate in the weaving. More than anything else, that sample card and staying on-task keep the yarn within bounds. The medium wool that I'm spinning -- some Border Leicester, some Jacob, some Romney -- all feels about the same, and all will spin into a slightly finer yarn than my target if my goal were fine spinning. Now, if all your fiber is the same color, you can spin a whole bunch of bobbins-full of singles, and then randomly pick from the singles to ply. That way, you can ply early singles by later singles or totally randomize, so your yarn diameter varies either as little as possible, or as randomly as possible. But I didn't have that option in this spinning journey. If you want to hear about spinning for a sweater's worth of fiber, Amy King has a great article on Knitty, Spin me a sweater! I just sent off the most recent 2 pounds to the tapestry weaver, shown here, bringing the total to 6 pounds, and got 2 more pounds to spin. All in all, it will be about a full year's journey to complete the 10 pounds. I have all sorts of luscious fibers lined up to treat myself with when my hands want a break from the medium wool. Pygora, Alpaca, Silk, and my own precious Llama -- all for laceweight. I'm thinking, though, I might want to dive into the stash for some wool/silk blend to spin into a thick single and tame with rough finishing, for a total change of pace. Or not -- 4-ply sock yarns are also on my spinning want-to's. ~~~~ So, how fun was Madrona? Wow. Franklin Habit's class on photography was eye-opening. I had a terrific time teaching a dozen or so folks the basics of spindling in the rotunda, did some stash enhancement to my silk weaving yarn at the Habu Textiles booth, picked up some lovely pencil roving from Crown Mountain Farms for learn to spin kits, and got to catch up with a variety of friends from hither and yon, including meeting several face to face for the first time. Syne, Sarah, Tasha, Anne-Marie, and many others -- however fleeting our hello's may have been, I always treasure meeting friends. And new friends, too -- Taryn, John, Selah, Judith W - how cool to meet you! If you didn't get to take one of my classes, there are e-books for all three of them on my website; Spinning Self-Striping Socks and the Mitts of Experience has always been fun to teach (see the review by kayak on ravelry for some hints why), and I'm pleased to announce two brand-new e-books for the other two classes, Power Spinning and the All That Yarn Scarf, and Silk on Spindles and the Lacey Vertical Rib Scarf. I hope you enjoy them! If you'd like to be on an email list for email announcements of upcoming workshops, let me know -- there are some fun ones coming up in March with Sheep & Socks as the theme. ~~~~ I ran across a great quote on You, Simplified worth repeating: Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless, and add what is uniquely your own ~Bruce Lee. How cool is that. Exactly. I hope you, dear reader, use my blog exactly that way: learn the useful, forget the useless, and add your own ideas into the mix. ~~~~ © February 25, 2011 by Ask The Bellwether, posted at http://askthebellwether.com/blog

Spinning Yarn: Yarn has been spun on spindles for thousands of years. With a little fiber and a spindle, you too can participate in this oldest of alchemies. This instructable will show you how to spin a single from wool roving, using a top-whorl spindle.

The Good Yarn supplies you with the very best knitting, spinning, weaving, crochet equipment as well as quality yarns and fibres

Excited to embark your spinning adventures, but not sure where to start? This post has everything you need to know when learning how to spin yarn.