Welcome to my online resource center for learning to spin. As time goes by, I will post pictures, resources, and articles that help and inspire me.
Since I was a child, I admired the tools related in the tales of long-ago cultures. The art of spinning is a common thread through many stories and the grace of the tool’s appearance is attractive. Once, when I was a teen, a spinner brought his wheel to the Newark Valley Depot Days gathering, a local event, and offered a short lesson to anyone interested. I was very interested and promptly stepped in line. When my time came, my foot and hands had a hard time communicating to each other about the mysteries of rhythm and timing. Quite as disconcerting was the strange pull that sucked my fluff into the little hole never to return. It didn’t even give me a chance! The spinner offered to treadle for me, but even with that help, my yarn was little more than a mess. Lumps followed skinny spots and the whole mess threatened to fall apart with little provocation. At last, the spinner took off my best piece and handed it to me with a smile and a guarantee that his wheel was not the easiest thing for a beginner to learn on. It was the beginning of a desire to conquer this art or fail trying.
As I began to learn more about the spinning wheel, other tools and parts came into focus. At first they were only strange names with no faces, but through research, the maidens, flyer, distaff, nostepinne, great wheel, niddy noddy, spindle, and drivewheel came into focus. Prior assumptions such as the location of the spindle (thanks a lot, Disney’s Sleeping Beauty) were corrected and I developed an understanding of the mechanics in a sketchy sort of way. Library books were a big help as were books that combined the spinning, weaving, and knitting crafts.
As I began to check the prices of this beautiful tool, I was dismayed to find that my favorite style was easily over $1000 besides shipping, even on Ebay. For several years, I would spend a few days looking at the latest online auctions, classified ads, and mainstream spinning companies online, then feel disappointed at the high prices and decide to come back later. One day, I came across a few blog pages that explained how people were making their own spinning machines from household parts. Bicycle wheels functioned for the drivewheel, pvc, leather, string, cup hooks, and scrap lumber made their due appearances with spare hardware. I saw enough to give me hope and direction. First, I sketched out some ideas and then made a list of the things I would need.
About this time, at one of my piano tuning appointments, the owner and I talked about her two pet alpacas and how they were recently shorn. I mentioned my long-standing interest in fibers and textiles and she asked if I knew anyone who could spin. I had to admit that I did not know anyone, but was interested in learning. She was thinking about sending the fleeces to Canada, but the process would take about 18 months to return and she was interested in finding a local spinner, if possible, since it was mainly a hobby, and not her main business. I offered to try to complete my spinning wheel and use her fiber with the understanding that I would be a beginner and the results may not turn out very well. She offered to pay for my time, but since I did not know how good the results would be, I asked for half of the alpaca instead of payment, which she gladly accepted.
Earlier, a piano student offered to bring her Louet spinning wheel to piano class and teach my sister and me how to spin. At first, it was mostly tangles and lumps, but as my left hand learned to prepare, or draft, my right hand learned how to control and pause the twist and they both learned how to hold back, then let the yarn pull onto the bobbin. My younger sister got the right technique before I did, but she was able to explain the feeling so I could understand what was going on.
Throughout the summer, I studied internet diagrams, an amazing spinning book, and all the pictures I could find. The spinning wheel building project came together and I learned many things concerning the mechanics of a poorly built spinning wheel that made me look for a good one. My bicycle wheel came from an old bike I bought for $3 at a city auction. The bearings were really bad, but I figured that for a project that might not work out, it was better to risk a cheap one than one off of my good bike. Those bearings really created chaos later on. The scrap lumber I used was 3×3 pine, in imitation of the Louet shape. The pine was a very poor choice, since the hardware tended to fall out of the very soft wood. I made a flyer using directions from a Utube post. It actually was one of my better parts. The bobbin, made of pvc water pipe and hole saw cut ends was off-center. The part that gave me the most trouble was the drivewheel hardware connecting to the footman (stick that goes to the pedal) and the treadle (foot pedal). The concepts surrounding the radial twist, the bearings, the length of the footman, and the length of the pedal held me up for weeks. Hardware specialists were not a huge help. If you want to see a Lowes associate’s eyes glaze over and get some pretty poor ideas, just mention that you are trying to build a spinning wheel and need some hardware for the wheel and pedal. It’s tough. In the end, the spinning wheel could actually twist yarn and pull it (viciously) onto the bobbin, but the whole situation was very rough. It would be a very bad choice for the fine, short staple (length) of alpaca I was hoping to spin. Instead of spinning it nicely and then softly pulling it onto the bobbin, it would draw already twisted yarn in so hard, I knew the alpaca would never have a chance. On the brighter side, I knew exactly what I did not want in a spinning wheel and that helped me to find what I really needed.
Shortly after realizing my creation would not work out, I was searching for spinning wheels on Ebay. One of the first ones that appeared was “Vintage Hallcraft Early American Maple Saxony Spinning Wheel“. It was artistic. It was beautiful. It was a SAXONY! With a flax distaff!!! The $254.60 included shipping. With a summer of learning (not failure) behind me, it was a wonderful deal. I was concerned about learning to spin on the one small bobbin, but the owner compensated for that worry by mentioning that it was very good at spinning alpaca. That was the selling point for me! She also did a lot of research on the wheel which made me appreciate her as a historian as well as a seller. When the enormous box arrived, I also found she knew how to pack a piece of fine furniture. Everything arrived safely, with only basic assembly required. It was set up in my living room within minutes.
That night, true to my dad’s predictions, I was up until 1:00 A.M. learning to spin on this beautiful wheel. It spun beautifully the first night, with long moments of extended treadle and drafting time. I had bought a pair of fine toothed plastic dog brushes to get used to the idea of carding. These helped me to prepare my first rolags of alpaca. Before I knew it, all of my two dozen or so worth of rolags were gone!
Over the next week, a few minutes or hours each day was spent with the new wheel. My brothers, automotive mechanics, helped me to fine-tune adjustments, oil the bearings, and improve performance. My cotton drive band kept derailing, but when the knot was spliced and the “x” put on top of the system, it was cured. The only problem now, was that I had spliced the drive-band on the snug side and I had to manually start the wheel with my hand on almost every revolution. With water-dampened fingers, I stroked the cotton drive band and left the drive band to stretch overnight. The next day, my brother oiled the drive wheel bearings and straightened the posts that hold the wheel. What an improvement! As we oiled the leather bearings with neatsfoot oil, performance continued to improve until I could keep up a steady treadle motion and draft at the same time. I could even start and stop the wheel where I wished.
The flyer has small hooks, and at first I was getting little or no draw onto the bobbin. I thought it might be because the reverse-threaded flyer whorl was stuck fast onto the bobbin whorl. After loosening the whorls, improvement came, but spinning finer thread was the biggest improvement. On my friend’s Louet, the flyer hooks were huge, and you could spin as big of a yarn as you could desire, but on this wheel, if I tried to spin a bulky yarn, the fibers became tangled in the flyer hooks, thus decreasing the draw onto the bobbin. It was a very sneaky problem to resolve, because you just don’t see the snag when you are spinning; the flyer moves way too fast. I learned that I must check the yarn in the flyer hooks when there is no draw onto the bobbin or suffer the consequences-major over-twist.
As more and more rolags were made, the plastic handles on the dog brushes weakened and finally snapped. It was very disappointing, because the spinning was just getting good, but not totally unexpected. That’s why the real handcarders are made of tough wood. Last week, I offered a swap of piano tuning for carding, but my friend is a teacher, and laughingly told me I would probably not see it until next year if she was to do it. However, she offered to let me use her drum carder after her present fleece is finished. I am so excited! Although I love spinning, I really do not like handcarding. It is tough on the shoulders and irritating when the fibers become lodged in one’s eyes.
My next project: a niddy noddy.
SpinningJulie 