Spinning Two!

Thursday night was my first Spinning II class. And it was great! I haven't been spinning as much lately because of travel, and trying to finish knitting projects, and so on, but now I feel very re-energized and am looking forward to lots of spinning and knitting over the weekend. Some things I learned:

• Finer yarn: more twist, less tension in the brake band. Thicker yarn: less twist, more tension.


• Dust your wheel every once in a while. It's probably not as vital as it is for my sewing machine, but it helps.


• Wool combs are very pointy and scary-looking, but I vastly prefer them to hand-carding.


• If you want a thicker yarn, only draft short lengths at a time. (This falls into the category of "ohhh, duh, that makes sense!")


• Scotch tensioning is less efficient but more versatile than double-drive.


• Instead of stopping frequently to test your singles for wraps-per-inch, just measure it once, take a sample of the measured stuff, and wrap it around a piece of cardstock. Keep that nearby while spinning and you can compare your singles to it every so often, instead of having to stop and re-measure, and you can write notes on the card and use it as a reference later. (This greatly appeals to my organizational impulses.)

There was more, but most of it was very hands-on learning and doesn't translate so well to blog-text. (How to properly tie a leader onto a bobbin, how to comb fleece, etc.) Our homework involves spinning 3 sizes of singles, and I'm a little concerned about my ability to spin <10 wpi singles. I mean, that's HUGE. This may take me a while.