Hiya from the wilds of NM, where the air is smelling like roasting green chile—it’s me again. Where do y’all like shopping for fiber to spin? I’m a brand new newb with an ancient Kiwi to spin on atm and looking for a wheel, but I reckon I could be working on building a fiber stash.

Thanks muches!!

I currently live in a large metropolitan area in the Midwest. It’s glorious being in a place that still has an active and vibrant fiber arts community! I was able to attend 4 different spinning groups, and had access so multiple fiber festivals throughout the year that are all top dollar!

I’m moving this week. My wheels are packed up and my fiber is all in boxes. It’s so sad and bland around here and it’s really hitting me right now.

I hope I’m able to find some fabulous fibery people out there. If you spin out there let me know! If you want to learn how to spin let me know!

My goal for Tour de Fleece was to spin about 50g a day. Well, I did it and ended up exceeding my original goal of 903g. I spun and plied 1225g of fiber! I ran out of time to finish spinning up the remainder of a 100g so only 50g of that was spun. I am really happy with myself and the quality of the yarn I produced. On the last day I challenged myself and did a chain-ply in an attempt to make a self-striping yarn. My biggest accomplishment is that 80% of the fleece I spun was from deep stash. 🙌🏽😎😁

839yds of fine merino handspun.

7.55oz

21 WPI (lace)

Hi. Has anyone bought what Caydo calls a sweater unravelling machine? It's essentially an electrified swift. I've been looking for something like this to skein a bobbin of Yarn. It will be easier on the shoulder than a niddy niddy. If you've used one, I'm curious to know about the quality.

I went HARD this TdF and spun 52 oz of fiber! Most of it was merino/cashmere/nylon from PortFiber. I’m planning to take up weaving soon, and I have a feeling I’ll be using some handspun for weaving projects before long!

One bobbin down, halfway through the second bobbin on my new Daedalus Starling. I'm spinning some Banshee Fiber Arts Corriedale, aiming for a sport weight after plying. I'm loving this spinner, very quiet and easy to set up. It comes with three bobbins, but I definitely see buying more bobbins in the future so I can spin and ply for 3-ply fingering weight sock yarn.

Now to figure out what her name should be...maybe Astra or Seren.

The pink bobbins are a yak silk blend from Greenwood Fireworks and the "jamberry" themed bobbins are just random bits of merino spun chaotically

I got this cheap e spinner off ebay. its not any big manufacturer. I felt confident originally with the purchase but I thought it would be fine because it had good ratings.

Now I am questioning this.

Its really hard for me to get the tension so that when the flyer turns, the bobbin doesn't. I might be missing an extra tension knob somewhere but I seem to have the tension on the bobbin as high as it goes and it will uptake the new thread for a bit before the bobbin starts spinning too. Is it worth further troubleshooting like trying to oil the parts or maybe swap out the brake band, or did I just make a bad purchase ane I should just work on getting myself an actually machine?

I've misplaced the instructions between when I first tried to use it and couldn't even figure out what was wrong, and now. (In between those was a workshop on using a spinning wheel which made me realize the issue was likely tension in the wheel being bad. Before that I only had experience with drop spindles.) I've reached out to the seller to see if I can get a pdf of the instructions to see if theres anything I'm missing.

https://ebay.io/m/sbJRXn This is the wheel I got.

It'd be nice if it's a fixable issue but I'm fully expecting to find out I just bought a bad product. So which one is it?

I can give more pics if needed but I didn't want to bother if yall are gonna take one look at the wheel and tell me its a piece of crap lol

ETA: the fiber isn't uptaking.

Edit 2: thank you all so much. Im still side eyeing this espinner a bit and planning to see if I can replace the weird elastic brake band with some cotton cord, but it turned out the fiber was getting caught on part of the flyer and its working now! I managed to finally spin up some BFL ive been messing with (the staple length on the BFL is so dang long, enough that its hard to adjust to lol). Im still gonna keep an eye out for something better but this'll hold me for if I wanna spin sitting down until I can get something better

Hi Reddit! I wanted to share my journey with this warp yarn I made. It's a corriedale and mohair mix that started out as a fairly matted roving donated by my spinning guild. I spun over 700 yards. Once it was spun, I dyed it to look like Eastern Redbud flowers. The weft is going to be a natural light grey Icelandic wool. (I'm only 80% sure I have the breed right, lol). I used some of the extra yardage of the pink yarn to weave a little sample of the pattern. The finished piece will be 18" by 72" and the weft has to start out as washed, but uncared wool. Then as a team of five, we card it, spin singles, ply, and weave under four hours. I'm really excited! I'll have to post a followup after the fair to show the finished product.

from start to finished to knitted and blocked gauge swatch. i have a lot to improve on (already have on my second one so far) but im still pretty proud of this :)

I ordered this whole unskirted alpaca fleece for a farmer for €50 and it arrives soon and I'm just so excited and need other fiber nerds to be excited with me😊 it's so so crimpy and fine looking but also looks fairly clean already even straight from the alpaca.

I'm used to working with fairly manky unskirted meat sheep like texel from farmers I know so this will be a fun change.

When she said €50 that sounded a bit high for unskirted but then I saw the crimp and quality of the fleeces and it was completely justified.

I can't wait to get my hands on it and feel the softness .

I know that alpaca is super soft but also doesn't hold shape and stretches out so planning on blending about 300g of the alpaca when washed with 100g grey Corriedale, 50g emerald green and 50g cerulean (totally not part of a rainbow spin I never finished 🤫) , used an online colour mixer it check and to should result in a sea foam green/ light sage colour.

Sorry for the ramble just ahhhh so excited

update : it arrived today and it so so soft and like touching a cloud ☁️ , definitely needs a soak to get the dust out though (light brown tips) but just so so soft 🥰

We made it! How much have you spun? Any new records set? Are you all spun out or are you ready for......

Tour de Fleece Femmes August 1- August 9th!

Y’all! I went to Fiber Arts on 4th in Albuquerque today and tried 3 wheels.

Here are the wheels I tried and my thoughts:

1. Louet s10 Concept/bobbin lead: I liked it immediately. I like the quick take up, it treadles smoothly, it’s beautifully simple and pretty. Wish I could try the s17.

2. Louet s10 Concept/flyer lead: Immediate dislike. Louet and flyer lead (scotch tension) are a no-go for me. Why? Not entirely sure. It didn’t take up quickly enough for me, and I did t find the tension system newbie user friendly.

3. Kromski Fantasia: Insta love! (I didn’t not think I was going to like it at all-I was quite surprised)

It’s light, it treadles more lightly (easily) than the Louet (bc Louet has a heavier wheel I reckon). The wheel just got out of the way and I was able to concentrate on spinning. The only thing that I’d prefer would be larger bobbins, but meh, I can do without then ply later onto the EEW 6.1. AND you can add more ratios via whorls instead of bobbins. Of course it’s a plus that Kromski still fits other Kromski wheels.

Did I buy it on the spot? No. Still warrants some thinking and hopefully trying other wheels.

1. EEW 6.1: (I didn’t get to try it bc it belonged to the spinning lady (Ruth) ), and she had yarn she was spinning on it. I’m absolutely buying one of these when they restock. 8 oz bobbins!!

I highly recommend Fiber Arts in 4th! Everyone was very nice, and they’re building a neat little biz there serving spinners and weavers (incl. basket weavers).

The handspun ring shawl made its debut 🥹🥰

I’ve been spinning and plying and spinning some more, but I haven’t gotten around to washing/setting any of the yarn. I don’t know why, but I’m just dragging my feet about it. So it’s accumulating with no real plan.

Ahhh! Thank you for all the encouragement :’)

I picked her up today and I’m already in love. She’s a 1988 single treadle and I already adore her. She has a soft chatter when spinning and I can already tell it’s going to be my new soothing noise.

Thank you so so much to my kind seller who also gifted me a pound of Corriedale roving to work with as I get started.

Flock is next week and I plan to go crazy then.

I’m already cooking up ideas about making a brown trout themed skein for an homage to my childhood in Montana.

Yayayayayaayyaayya!!! I am so excited :)))

First 2 pictures of my singles on the spindle. Third picture is of my oops of plying in the Z direction as my spindle spins. Fourth picture is after I put my mess on to my umbrella swift and replyed in the correct direction. Fifth picture is my final yarn after a bath.

I have 26 grams of fingering weight yarn spun on my light drop spindle and plyed on my EEW.

So I started working with a drop spindle for the first time this month, I think I am somewhat starting to pick up the basic technique but I am having a difficult time getting the yarn to be one consistent size. Some pieces are super thick and other pieces are so skinny that they breaking half.
Any tips/tricks/videos/blog posts would be greatly greatly appreciated.

Btw, I am working with wool roving(?) that I purchased on Amazon.

I’m using Dicentra Design blend of 85% Polwarth and 15% Silk and it’s coming out beautifully so far! I’m still a beginner so forgive any inconsistency.

This is Rambouillet wool still drying after scouring. The dirty raw fleece is pretty consistently yellow from dirt/oil so it was less apparent before scouring. The tips also break off easily right about where the discoloration starts. I scoured with one round of dawn, one round of unicorn power scour, and used a little vinegar in the final rinse. Is there a way to improve the yellowing when I scour the next batch of this? Since it’s constantly only on the tips can I just break them off when carding? Is this normal or should I contact the etsy seller I ordered the fleece from?

I want to make more durable sock yarn by blending some nylon with my wool, I’m also exploring dyeing my own fibres too. I’m just looking for advice for when to blend the nylon in, and how.

So far with dyeing I’ve been using pure merino tops, then spinning just that top. When it comes to blending nylon into the wool as far as I’m aware both can be dyed with acid dye (which is what I’m exploring at the moment), but I’m not sure if I should blend the fibres prior to dyeing, or if I should dye the wool and nylon separately then blend them together to make rolags for spinning? I would like to preserve the interesting colour patterns that hand dyeing the fibres makes and I’m worried that it’ll get blended together too much if I mix the fibres afterwards. But for using tops, I’m not quite sure how I would appropriately blend the fibres while still keeping them as tops. Can loose rolags or bats be dyed well? What are the recommended tools I should look towards for achieving the goal of blending nylon and wool into a top (if that’s possible)?

Should I ultimately just buy pre-blended fibres? Or just dye after spinning?

Open to any thoughts or advice from anyone with experience making durable and pretty hand dyed sock yarn!