I’m doing the Hush-Hush Handspun Hootenanny swap. Here’s my questionnaire info: 1. How long have you been spinning? What skill level do you consider yourself? I’ve been spinning for over 30 years and consider myself advanced. 2. What kinds of yarn do you create (singles/2-ply/3-ply/art yarn)? Any type of yarn I want. Rarely novelties or […]

Allright, I’m going to do a few questions relating to my wheel collection, because it’s been a long week and that’s what I think I have the cycles to do. Ok, devil’s advocate here: Why do you have so many? Are certain wheels better for spinning certain kinds of yarns? And how do you justify […]

In that way that things sometimes go, a wheel followed me home yesterday… It’s an older Country Craftsman, a 24″ Saxony wheel, literally never used. It needs some cleaning up and minor tweaks, but should be a solid enough spinner once those are all squared away. Posting the picture on Ravelry, though, resulted in folks […]

There were a bunch of good, but unrelated to each other, questions asked last week when I started the Summer Q&A series with “spinning from the fold.” What’s more, the Q&A format worked out pretty well for handling the summertime blues! But then Monday snuck up on me with no topic planned. How could I […]

1. What is spinning from the fold? The short answer is this: you take a not-very-long length of spinnable fiber, and instead of presenting it end-first to be spun, fold it over. Instead of drawing fiber off the end of your supply, it now comes from the folded part in the middle. Linda Diak from […]

I realize it’s technically not summer, since it starts in earnest on the Solstice, but let’s face it: once school is out, it’s summer. Therefore, it’s been summer for several weeks now. Summer, it turns out, is just not my favourite season. The reason why will perhaps be evident if I tell you it’s now […]

I made it home from TNNA’s summer 2008 show in Columbus, where it was my pleasure to sit (or, actually, mostly stand) in front of a few racks of baskets full of fiber from Louet, while demonstrating Louet’s newest wheels, the Victoria travel wheel and her full-size sibling, the Julia. I know; it’s a horrible, […]

So I have this project that I actually input on Ravelry. It’s a shawl. I started it almost a year ago and had thought I’d finish it by SOAR last year, but… well, didn’t. So let’s just step through things a bit here. 3 July 2007: 4 July 2007: 5 July 2007: 6 July 2007: […]

First things first: congratulations to the manchild for successfully completing 4th grade. Here he can be seen on the penultimate day of elementary school (because next year is middle school, and marching band, and stuff of that ilk), modeling his new poncho (his grandma was in Peru last month and we all got new ponchos, […]

Have you ever spun a yarn with mild slubs or a few neps in it? Sure, we all have. Generally speaking, most folks tend to say that if you don’t want those in your yarn, make sure they don’t go in while you’re spinning your singles. And that’s fine! That definitely makes sure they aren’t […]