Spinning

2020 has been a strange year so far for all of us. We’ve spent months in lockdown. We have just moved back home after spending lockdown with my mum. And I’ve come to the realisation that sometimes, we need to follow our dreams and I’ve finally allowed myself to succumb to my yearning to learn to spin.

After all, it is good for us to stretch our minds and to learn a new skill. It is strange to become a beginner again, to remind myself of how difficult it is to achieve mastery of a new craft and the excitement that comes with learning something new.

My love story with spinning began a very very long time ago when as a child I spent a week with my family staying at a friends holiday cottage near Strangford. It was a beautiful cottage and in the corner of the lounge, sat the most beautiful antique spinning wheel I had ever seen. We’ve all read the fairy stories, Rumpelstiltskin spinning straw into gold, Sleeping Beauty pricking her finger and falling asleep for a hundred years… But, of course, nothing could beat actually being up close to the real thing and in stolen moments, gently stroking my hand over the aged polished wood. Moving the wheel with a finger, even though, I wasn’t supposed to touch the spinning wheel in case it was accidentally damaged.

Throughout my life, my fascination with spinning wheels and yearning to create my own beautiful unique yarn has persisted without abating.

When I studied for my textile design degree, over 30 years ago, I did some spinning of yarn on industrial machines. I mixed colours, blended fibres and created smooth and textured yarns which I wove and machine knitted into swatches. I loved it but it lacked the magical quality that I had experienced just touching the spinning wheel.

Since then, I’ve stood and watched people spinning on spinning wheels when I’ve visited folk parks or walked around yarn festivals. I’ve looked at antique spinning wheels while walking around a museum on Shetland. I’ve bought skeins of handspun yarn because their texture and colour fractals spoke to me.

When I first started thinking about actually buying a spinning wheel, I would have loved to buy a traditional wheel but it really wasn’t an option for me as we don’t have the space to be able to let it sit out. I also wanted a wheel that would be easily portable.

Then I read about the Electric Eel Wheel Nano 1.1 made by Dreaming Robots and thought it might have been an option. I watched lots of youtube videos of people using and enthusing about their EEW Nano. It is a reasonably priced choice for an e-spinner. I read posts where users found different ways of weighting down their EEW Nano by attaching it to a heavy book with elastic bands or pinning it to a piece of board so that it didn’t move about too much when it is being used. Owners of the EEW Nano are really passionate about them but I just felt that for me I wanted something a little bit more substantial.

I turned to the Ashford E-Spinner 3. It is made from sustainably-managed New Zealand Silver Beech hardwood and is a solid little workhorse of a spinner. It sits neatly on the shelf in the lounge or can be stored in its carry case. It came with a lazy Kate for plying and 3 jumbo bobbins (although, I think I will need more bobbins).

My E-spinner arrived on Monday and I’d spent time the week before it arrived dyeing some different breeds of wool combed top to practice with. I bought my spinning wheel from Spin City and Louise has been very helpful. I also bought a pair of hand carders to be able to blend colours and create rolags.

I spent Monday afternoon reading the instruction pamphlet and then I spun my first bobbin. I tried bits of all my different combed top, Merino, Merino/nylon, BFL, Jacob and Shetland… and they all ended up in my first 2ply skein of yarn. It is colourful and fun and super bulky. My second bobbin is beautiful but also ultra bulky.

My first spinning attempts are thin, thick, overspun, underspun and a million miles from the sock weight yarn that I love to knit.

There are of course teething troubles, it is tricky to get the fibre to attach to the lead yarn on the bobbin and when I try to spin thin singles my fibre breaks. I’ve probably got the tension a little too tight or am trying to run the wheel slightly too fast for a beginner or am not yet getting enough twist into the fibre. I have been told that I should practice a little every day and then one day it will just “click”.

I’m not sure how long it will take, how many books and videos I’ll need to read and watch, as I practice and learn this wonderful craft. I’m at the very start of my spinning journey and loving every single moment.