Spinning Night

On Tuesday night, Hammersmith Stitch N' Bitch had a change from our usual venue of Caffe Nero. Instead, everyone came to my house and Toad taught us how to spin!

Here we are learining how to card roving to form a rolag, and using a drop spindle. Toad was a great teacher, incredibly patient and calm, and had kindly brought enough drop spindles so we could all use them at the same time.

Andrea brought along her friend Blanca who was visiting from Germany, and was a great addition to the group.

Here's Toad showing us how to spin using her wheel. She looks very professional with her apron. Believe me when I tell you that her hand-spun yarn is very good. I keep telling her to sell it on Etsy.

And me trying it out!

I much preferred using the spinning wheel. It must have something to do with using the foot peddle as you have more control (this is something I know how to do with the sewing machine). I can't say that I produced great results; they were far from that, with the tension being completely off, resulting in thick and thin "yarn".

However, we got the idea and could only hope to reach Toad's skill level one day. The drop spindle I just couldn't control. It was really hard to spin it in the air at the same time as pulling out the rolag to create the spun wool, though others found it easier than I did.

Here's Jayne using the wheel:

And Icy using the drop spindle:

Some had better results than others, mine clearly being the worst! Andrea even began knitting with the yarn she spun!

She mixed up some green, blue and natural roving, carded it and spun it using the drop sipindle, then knitted this swatch, which looks very impressive. She said it was very dense and rough, as there was a lot of spin in the yarn. It really makes you realise just how much work goes into creating the perfect yarn that we all knit with.

We were well fed and watered and a great time was had by all. Can't wait to catch up next Tuesday, back at our usual spot.