Why Spinning Yarn Is Like Cooking Potatoes… and Dancing

I returned from the Spin-Off Autumn Retreat, overloaded and fatigued with mind racing. Recovering, thinking over the prior week’s events, I sat with my cup of strong coffee catching up on blogs, and one of the things I found was Cassie asking the question, “Should everyone spin?” You know, I never thought to consider that, […]

Updated 2015: check out my overall “Getting Started” advice! Getting started with handspinning does not require a huge investment. Although there’s no reason you can’t spend as much as you like, and start right out with expensive equipment and materials, it’s not required at all. The next set of instructions is for making the cheapest, […]

Here we go with round one of my series tackling some of the classic debates in the handspinning arena. A few of you laughingly commented this might be an odd choice of timing to go picking fights, what with absurd heat waves going around and how that affects temperaments — but then again, perhaps a […]

Freshly updated, now with more questions answered, Fri Aug 10 09:02:08 EDT 2007! It’s common nowadays for a lot of folks in the fiber world to use the word “roving” to rever to any unspun fiber. The thing is, this isn’t really accurate and doesn’t give a clear sense of what the preparation really is […]

Well, I had to give Cardzilla a good cleaning after a tweed blend I just finished up, so I figured I’d document the process for all to see. You can really tell the poor guy needs a cleaning. Look at all this trash on the main drum! And the lickerin drum — stuff piles up […]

Dear Cassie, It’s been very nice getting to know you online the past little while. I’ve been enjoying our correspondence, and I am thrilled that you’ve been so happy with your Creamsicle fiber. As I think I may have mentioned, the merino/silk/camel blend is absolutely one of my favourites to spin. So I felt very […]

It’s an utterly bleak and gray rainy day. I’m thrilled. Unfortunately, they’re saying on the radio that even if it rains all day today and all day tomorrow, it won’t likely be enough to make a huge difference to the crops, and we’ll still need several more inches of rain, soon. So we’re keeping our […]

There have been lots and lots of terrific questions over the past couple of weeks, and it’s time for a Q&A roundup. Let’s start with questions from A Little Bit About Plying, Part 1. There are some absolutely wonderful comments on this post, and I’d recommend folks stroll through ’em if they have a chance […]

I’ve promised we’d be back to more plying talk shortly, and promised a video. There’s more to talk about with respect to plying than fits into one 10-minute video on youtube, so today’s video is the first installment, and covers only plying with a wheel using a lazy kate. Part 2 will cover common plying […]