Things that make me super happy

Those fibres are gorgeous! I feel scared spinning them, as my spinning skills can easily ruin such a beauty!

Spindles

Question: How many spindle would be enough?
Answer: Maybe 42?
I bought two and I want more, because I am in love!
Mistral and Sirocco support spindles from Hipstrings. They are fabulous!
First using sample that came with the spindles to test them.

Now spinning cotton punis I hand-carded myself (that’s why they look so ugly).

Spinning wool

Finally removed blue wool from the spinning wheel. It was sitting there for almost a year. Somehow it did not work for me, although the yarn is very nice and soft. Maybe some time later....
Started spinning some old sliver from KnitPicks. It may became a garment one day...

Rainbow dilemma

This was my first again.

First locks, first carding.

I am not sure I did everything right, maybe this is the reason I am not quite satisfied with the result.

It was spinning with difficulties and ended up uneven and itchy (English Leicester).

In any case, I promised myself to try this again later with a different fleece. 

I spun the colours rendomly but I spun them too thin for using as singles. 

Need to ply.

My question is whether I should ply the wool on itself thus creating even crazier yarn or shoud I spun some natural wool singles and combine them with coloured ones?

More cotton

My third cream coloured easy-to-spin cotton piece from CottonClouds sample kit is ready.

Now I am working on hand carded (by myself) Pima.

Tour de Fleece

I cannot actually participate in TDF as I am not such a confident spinner and have not much to spin. But most of all, I have no TV channels to whatch Tour de France.

However, I can spin while everyone is TDFleecing. 

For this I've picked my first hand carded locks. I bought 3 oz. of Rainbow fleece to accompany my first cards, separated locks by colour and carded them. I have some doubts that I did everything right but at least I did my best.

Beautiful!

I tried to spin them picking up at random using what I think is long draw.

Not entirely happy. I was planning to make singles but it seems that I am spinning them too thin, again! 

And the yarn is kind of itchy. Will see...

Mittens

Winter is over and I've finished my mittens.
I frogged them three times, changed pattern twice and finally ended up with stockinette stitch. Nothing fancy.
They are knitted from singles I spun a couple of years ago on a drop spindle. They are thick and thin, not on purpose though, just because I was knew to spinning.

Spinning frenzy

I have no idea when I will be able to spin it all but anyway...
Hemp to the left, nettle to the right and soy, bamboo, tencel, seaweed - centre bottom.

At the same time somewhere in the leaving room...
Wool

Yak

Cotton

Spinning study

I am done with my fibre studies.  First of all I need to say that this fun became possible only because I managed to buy several types of fibres at one place in very tiny 5g amounts. 

Flax
I bought all this staff at a felting store and I guess the flax they have is the one used for felting but not spinning. The fibres were rather short and torn. But I enjoyed spinning it and hope this will help me in spinning real linen.

Hemp

It was a bit like the flax above but softer and nicer and easier to spin into a unified thread.                   

Nettle

This was such a pleasure to spin, so silky and smooth.

Cotton

This was combed cotton. Not as easy to spin as the easy-to-spin cotton I used to work with, but the result is really nice, smooth and shiny.

Overall, this was a very pleasant experience and I am already thinking about buying all 30 colours of cotton and hemp and maybe even 10 gram of each. And than weave a stripy something out of them...

 

Spinning

What I like about spinning is that if you have fibres you can pick up a spindle and start spinning - no preparation needed.

Yesterday I treated myself with a bunch of "exotic" fibres to play with.

Cashmere...

To be plied with Mulberry silk later

Coloured cotton

Flax

Hemp

And nettle

A long way to towels

I bought this kit from CottonClouds.
I am supposed to spin all those cottons and weave towels out of them... one day.
I wonder how many years it will take for me to finally see a towel.

Spinning alpaca

After my first alpaca practice with warm and cozy results I am trying to spin the same yarn on a cotton/linen core.
It kind of works...