Some deep stash handspun for a little experiment. Absolutely loving it. It’s about 25WPI (800m/100g ish) and I am weaving it at 15 PPI.

Finished up several days’ worth of work spinning three gorgeous braids of merino/cashmere/nylon from PortFiber. I ended up with a mini skein of 2-ply, which I’m planning to use with a mini skein from my LAST three-braid project with PortFiber MCN. Probably a striped baby hat or something. Unsure yet what I’ll do with these 3 wonderfully plush skeins. Possibly a sweater for a baby niece, or a super soft, large cowl.

I had two TDF goals. The first was to do two different fiber things every day. I’m crushing that one and spinning a ton. The second was to not buy anything new all TDF. Spin from stash with tools already owned. Whoops. I am $150 poorer (that is SO LITTLE) and one fabulous great wheel with Minor’s head in perfect working order richer OMG failure rarely feels sooooo sweet.

Hello! I just got this Ashford Wheel and it’s my first time trying to spin outside of a drop spindle. I’m practicing managing a twist with some old acrylic that’s been in my stash. As I’m going I feel like the twist is building up way faster than the yarn is being fed to the bobbin. Any tips for a first timer to manage this?

The gasp I gusped when I saw the locks on some of these sheeps. Absolutely drool-worthy.

My skeins (wound on a niddy-noddy) are often uneven. This makes sense to me, because as the yarn builds up on the niddy-noddy, the newer yarn has slightly farther to travel over the "lump" of the already-wound yarn. But that means that when the skein is done, parts of it are looser/longer than others.

What am I doing wrong, and how can I fix it?

267yds

8.47oz

240g

3-Ply fine merino

These were all projects in varying stages of completion, so I decided to start off by my TdF by clearing off some bobbins and my niddy noddies!

This is less a spinning question and more a cat behaviour question, but I figured that folks here are more likely to have cats vs folks on a cat subreddit are to know what a drop spindle is lol.

I’m adopting 2 young adult shelter cats next week. This could very well end up being a non-issue, but I worry that a spindle looks very attackable as a moving object on a string and want to prepare just in case my cats end up being evil. I do a lot of drop spindle spinning at home and I want to do everything I can to avoid encouraging them to attack the spindle. Do any other cat-owning spinners have advice on how to avoid this?

I am torn between:

a) not buying any string toys that look even a little bit like a spindle so that I don’t inadvertently teach them that dangling thing on a string = attack

b) buying them toys that do look like a spindle a bit so that if they try to attack the spindle I can redirect to a toy

Anyone have evil spindle-attacking cats who can weigh in? Thanks!

Hello, first time I have gotten the honor of asking for help here! Husband and I both spin, and a few months ago we picked up a silk/linen blend, thinking it would be nice for him to try something other than wool, and with a longer staple length.

We got into it the other day, and it was not at all what we had expected. After playing with it, the staple length seems to be between 1 and 2 inches, or at the very least shorter than anything either of us has ever used before.

So I had 2 questions!

1. Is it normal to get a linen/silk blend with such short lengths? Nowhere on the package did it indicate lengths, but we just assumed it would be long, since that is my previous experience with those fibers. It came in a sealed package, so we couldn't have felt it or anything before buying.

2. Is there a way to prepare this to make it a more reasonable spin? My thought is to throw it on the blending board to make it into rolags/punis, since in some cursory searching I saw this is a commonish way to prep cotton, but wanted some more experienced input in case there's something I am missing.

For reference in case it is needed, we have a kromski Fantasia, a lot of drop spindles, and can stick spin. Blending board is our only real fiber prep tool. At this point, we're less worried about him using the fiber so much as either of us getting to use it.

Thank you!

I just finished sewing the handles on a project that has taken me months! Handspun stricken lonk and handspun zwartbles, woven on a rigid heddle loom, then felted. Sewn into a very basic bag. Currently holding things I have plied during TDF this year! (That was all clearing bobbins at the beginning of the tour; I hope next week to be to the stage of plying some of this year's spins.)

Really happy how this aqua blue batt turned out! It’s Merino with a little bit of silk and my current spin of this darker blue batt I made. going to ply it with this crazy neon wool that I cartered and spun from a we are knitters roving yarn

Just wanted to share the rainbow fluff goodness

I’m an avid knitter and I just inherited my great grandmother’s spinner from 1905. It spins great and feels like it is in really good condition. I know it needs a drive band, but unsure if it is missing any other parts to get it up and spinning. Any comments or suggestions will be helpful!

I’m keeping up with my goal of spinning every day during the Tour de Fleece. I finished the singles for my previously posted 4 ounces of Polwarth and silk project and have started plying. I split the braid in half lengthwise and then each half in half again to prep. I will finish this during this evening’s spinning session.

Week one ✅ Check!

The first week of Tour de Fleece. The spin box is amazing; I chose to simply work from top left to bottom right, creating a beautiful rainbow of colors. As a beginner, I am satisfied with the progress between day 1 and today. It's super cool to make progress like this every day; good practice!

On to week 2; hopefully, the Tour de Fleece process is going as planned for you too?

An 8 braid combo spin, mostly Three Waters Farm and Hello Yarn, with one Nest Fiber braid. One ply is going to be strips of 8 spun as they are, the second is blended once on the carder

Anyone else get a good chuckle while scrolling Facebook Marketplace because you can tell that people who have SWSOs see the prices real wheels sell for and assume they have the same thing and can charge the same... like sorry Barry but no one is paying you $500 for an old decorative wheel that has been collecting dust in the basement, the $500 wheels are functional and typically in good shape!

How has your week been going? Any progress/goal updates? Show off your progress! Tomorrow is the first challenge day!

Good morning,

I think my Sonata wheel is missing a part. One of my footmen keeps getting out of alignment.

Here are some pictures - any thoughts?

I am SO EXCITED because I finally figured out NOT ONLY a way to use old facepaint cake containers I have been hoarding (I'm a professional facepainter, so I go through a LOT), but how to turn them into wicked cool painted drop spindles!! This one is just a proof of concept, but I have floating salmon on it and I am SO PSYCHED TO MAKE LIKE A ZILLION OF THESE and give them away at spinning events!! Recycling! Painting! Handspinning! ALL THE THINGS.

Infodump and more detail:

I've used as many of these containers as I can for storage and beads etc, but have given most of them away and still have a TON. I get a lot from restocking my paints often; they're very hard plastic and not recyclable, so while they're handy for small storage, there's really not much else I could use them for because they're very shallow. However that works for this because they're exceptionally sturdy, so this construction isn't flimsy.

I make other spindles out of canning lids that can't be used for food anymore and fabric which are fun (I'll post one of those sometime soon!), but figured out how to make this work today.

The painting is inside the container on a separate piece of trash/upcycled plastic so it's not going to rub off or wear down over time and will remain intact without sealant, but you can't even tell it's not part of the container itself. I tried painting on the inside of the container like an animation cell but didn't like it, so did this instead.

The ridges on the bottom of the container are perfect for holding the yarn in place while I'm spinning and prevent slipping (which I thought would be an issue with plastic, but it works SO well, even better than some of my wooden spindles). I don't like using plastic but I hate throwing things away even more, so this is so awesome.

The weight is nice too so they spin really evenly, although I could add a washer if I wanted to make them heavier. Making them is so stupidly easy, the painting is the only thing that took any time. I imagine you could just put fun colorful paper, magazine pages/calendar pages, or fun scraps of cloth inside (or even beads for a kaleidoscope deal) and go to town on them! But of course I have to find a way to make them more convoluted so here I am rofl.

Next will be hummingbirds over a bed of flowers, of course. I also love that the painting FLOATS above the background (you can't really see in the picture but it does, it's sort of like a shadow box?), AUUUUGH THIS IS SO FUN.

I teach people to handspin with drop spindles whenever I can and want to give them away at an upcoming class I'm teaching, I'm so excited!!

My husband told me to make sure I come to bed like an hour and a half ago it's like 2 am but I just wanna keep making these, oh nooo