From Sheep to Sweater: Part 2 - An awkward foray into spinning

I’m sure I’m not alone in having some multi-year WIPs, but even if I am, I can’t change my reality that my attention and interest waxes and wanes pretty quickly, so I’m often left with projects that I’ve set aside until I have time or interest again. And for that reason, I have 4 raw sheep fleeces I got from a local farmer, that have been sitting in bags waiting to be processed into yarn… for about two years. Oops. 

And that brings me to now. I picked up the motivation to work on processing the wool again pretty recently, so I’ve slowly and very not meticulously (it’s already been established that I don’t follow instructions that well because I get bored.. Similarly I don’t bother removing all the little bits of plant matter I come across because I just can’t be bothered. Will that be a problem later? That’s for future Tali to find out) been cleaning and carding the wool with little dog slicker brushes into tiny rolags. Once I finally had a bunch of rolags, and was heading out of town for the weekend, I figured this would be a good opportunity to take my very portable drop spindle (that I made from dollar store items - keep an eye out for the post about how I made it) and a bag of rolags to try my hand at spinning some yarn. 

Some Youtube University and a deep sense of worst case scenario I can’t do it, but it won’t hurt to try later, and I was sitting by a lake, sweating in the muggy air, and spinning my first ever handspun yarn! Is it even in size the entire way through? Not at all. Did I keep dropping my spindle because the yarn would break? You betcha. Did my hands get covered in wool fuzz? Sure did. But even though I kinda sucked at it, it was actually pretty fun! Oh, and all that plant matter that I didn’t bother being too precise about picking out earlier, well some of it fell out while I was spinning, but also quite a bit of it is now part of my yarn. Oh well, I guess it gives it character. 

Once I finished up my single ply, I wound it onto my ball winder (though you can also use a stick, you just want to make sure to have access to both ends of the yarn) and then used my trusty drop spindle again to ply my yarn into two-ply. That part was definitely way easier than the first round of spinning, less likelihood of dropping the spindle due to broken yarn. So now I have a drop spindle full of very lumpy and pretty scratchy two-ply yarn. The next step is to get some supplies for making myself a niddy noddy (which is just a delightful word to say) and wind my yarn into a hank for soaking and finishing up before I can figure out what to make with my very first handspun bit of yarn! 

There are a few lessons I’m taking from this. One, that it’s fine to leave WIPs for a few years until you’re interested in them again, instead of pushing through and being miserable while crafting. Two, that it’s fine to be terrible at something but still enjoy it. Three, that we all start as beginners, and it’s just about practicing. And four, that often a DIY version of equipment is enough to get you started while you figure out if this is something you actually want to invest in. Do I now want a spinning wheel? You betcha. Do I have room or money for one? Not in the slightest. So for now I’m sticking with my slightly dinky looking spindle that gets the job done, but who knows what the future will bring.. Maybe one day I’ll have an entire studio filled with multiple versions of all my dream equipment. But until then, I will continue crafting and making and learning, and always being curious. 

My first handspun yarn on my DIY niddy noddy