The Crafty Princess Diaries

Tammy Powley’s Crafty Weblog

Spindle Skein Reveal

| 6 Comments



Ummm…yeah…believe it or not, this is a skein of yarn, my first. The fiber was 2 ounces of medium Coopworth, and as you can see I spun the bajebeez out of it! The colored bits of yarn hold the skein together. It’s part of the process before you set it and let it dry. It is single ply because, seriously, why ply this chunk of stuff?



Now here is my second attempt, also a single ply. This is from 2 ounces of Blue Faced Leicester Silver. While this is also over-spun, I can see that my thicknesses are a little bit more consistent. And, I mean a little.



As I was taking the yarn off the bobbin and putting it on a contraption called a Niddy Noddy (a contraption that allows you to form the yarn into a skein without getting all tangled up), it broke, so this is the last bit of the spun fiber from above. Since this was at the end of my bobbin (aka TP roll), it was the very last few bits that I spun, and again, I see improvement. It’s not a breakthrough amount of improvement, but…

My first few ounces look pretty rough. I know that I’m rushing things. I over spun them, and they truly look awful. This is not an immediate gratification craft, and I’m learning patience and persistence. Hopefully, it will pay off. I’m not going to think about giving up until I spin some more. I have ordered some roving, and I’m giving myself a one pound challenge. If I can’t get it together and make something that is at least semi-usable after practicing with a pound of fiber, then this may not be for me.

Author: Tammy

Welcome to the Crafty Princess Diaries, my weblog and site where I get to blab about my passion for crafts, primarily jewelry making, and my crafting career. My name is Tammy Powley, and I decided to call my blog the Crafty Princess Diaries because of this very dorky picture I have of myself and because my husband often refers to me as β€œthe princess and the pea,” which is just another way to say that I tend to be particular sometimes. Along with this weblog, I have a number of jewelry making books published.

6 Comments

  1. As long as you can see improvement, keep going. That said, better you than me. Patience and persistence, indeed! Love the bobbin πŸ˜‰
    Bev

  2. Thanks Bev. I am spinning the other 2 oz. that came in my kit, and I think it is looking much better.

  3. Wow, you are brave, Tammy. If you master this, do you plan to try spinning cat hair? lol.

  4. What a fabulous first attempt! Much better than mine ever was! Your singles skeins are always going to look over-spun because they need to be plied to make a balanced yarn. now that thats out of the way – I always leave my yarns as singles until and unless I have an immediate use for them, and I often use them as “energised” singles and don’t bother plying. It how they often used them in days gone past when life was too busy to ply their yarns and they were needed immediately for cloth making. You can get some interesting effects!
    Treasure your skeins. In a little while, when you want to spin designer or art yarns, you will find you can no longer do it, and have to relearn the process, lol!

  5. Thanks, Eileen, well I don’t know if I’m brave, and I am sure I could find plenty of animal hair around here to spin!

    Thank you so much, Caroline, for your kind words. I’m on my third portion of 2 oz roving that came with the kit, and it is looking promising. I didn’t know that about the single ply. Once get get something a little less bumpy, I play to ply it and maybe even make something with it.

  6. Pingback: The Crafty Princess Diaries » 2ply on the Fly, as in 2ply Yarn

Leave a Reply

Required fields are marked *.


This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.