3 Days with Spindle = New Love

 second day on spindle

I took Chris's (aka Doodle on Ravlery) advise and got a drop spindle to learn how to spin. After some bumps of the shipping, it finally arrived.  The store I bought from shipped me a set of hand carders instead of the spindle.  After looking up the price and saw that the carders cost 3 times of spindle, the greedy side of me was tempted to keep it or sell it on ebay or something.  But my tiny little nicer side of me somehow managed to convince myself to call the store and send the carders back.  One day when I want a  pair of carders, I'll probably kick myself.

The spindle arrived on Thursday. It's Hi-Lo Spindle (I've only been using it as high whorl.) With the roving I received and few minutes of watching YouTube I started spinning that evening.  It was the most frustrating thing in a long, long time.   I could not do anything at all.  I even said to Paul, "this is crazy, not fun at all."  I just couldn't draft, and when I did the roving would break. I went to bed feeling completely defeated and ready to give up.  The next morning I woke up and determined to give it another whorl before waving the white flag.  I went on Ravelry and Youtube and found another 2 videos that helped me more.  The one that really made it click was Maggie Spindling.  Watching a kid doing it slowly and non-expert like really showed me how to approach it as a beginner and made me feel OK to have very uneven looking strings. The other one was Drafting on a Spindle.  It was super basic and exactly what I needed - seeing where I should pinch. Being visual learner, I am completely at lost when someone gives too much verbal instruction and explanation.  At that point  I just zone out and unable to follow any directions.  I noticed the same learning habit in my Pilate class.  Our instructor gave cues and simple reminders and it worked great.  Every now and then when we had substitute instructors that came in and constantly giving us information and constantly reminding us on all the details as we're doing the work out, I simply could not concentrate at all.  These basic videos were great to watch in addition to other ones that had more information.

So I got on the spindle again.  I was stating to get it.  I ended up dividing the roving into 4 length- wise to help me with spinning thinner yarns.  I'm not sure if that is a good thing to do or not, probably not. Oh well.  It went so much better the second day.  I was spinning yarns with less tight twists and was able to finish the full length of roving, and most of all, I was actually able to draft.

Yesterday I woke up and coludn't wait to spin.  So I spent the third day on spindle. I'm getting better at consistent thickness, nowhere near perfection, but definitely some improvements.  The first roving I used was Corriedale, and half of it had spunned into nothing but barf of roving.  Then the second roving I tried was dark brown Welsh, super coarse and rough, but I love the look of it even if it cannot be worn next to skin.

on the right - first day on spindle with Corriedale

on the left - third day on spindle with brown Welsh

Crazy me, I'm already dreaming of dyeing up some rovings for some fun spinning.

I'm in love with spinning.  I can't wait 'till I save up enough to replace the missing flyer unit of the spinning wheel I have.