Indholdsfortegnelse for Summer 2022 i Spin-Off

With Majacraft fibre preparation tools and the versatile Aura, you will be able to create your own textural masterpiece! The Majacraft Aura is a wheel that will always grow with you. All the Majacraft accessories fit this wheel, so you can easily spin from lace to super chunky yarns. The Aura comes to you with three jumbo bobbins, which hold at least 8oz of yarn each. The unique modified double drive system gives you effortless treadling and works to ensure you need very few adjustments to the tension as your bobbin fills. Pair this wheel up with your favourite Majacraft preparation tool, also beautifully crafted to help you create your perfect prep. Any of our carding tools will be especially helpful if you want to add texture to your spin.…

Super slubby, smooth and silky, soft and fuzzy—handspun texture offers us a lifetime of exploration. Endless options for manipulating texture in our fibers, yarns, and finished textiles means there is always something new to try, no matter how wild or tidy our personal aesthetic. Some spinners add vibrantly dyed nepps and noils to their batts and yarns, while other spinners carefully comb wool locks to achieve noil-free perfection. Both are creating intentional texture. This summer, we are taking a closer look at the touch and feel of our beloved handspun. Katie Weston walks us through four luxury fibers known for their soft halos and fuzzy fabrics, and Cindy Ellen Hill shares her love of cordage, nature, and tool-less twisting. Emily Wohlscheid takes a deep dive into thoughtful blends designed…

I have a weak spot when it comes to fluff. Particularly in the winter months, I can’t think of any situation that can’t be improved by encasing myself in something with a beautifully soft, fuzzy texture. There are lots of ways to produce warm, inviting textures. Wool can be spun soft and fluffy, but here, I’m focusing on the superstars of fluff. These are the fibers that deliver fuzz that is completely over the top. This can be done either by spinning the fibers by themselves or by combining them with wool. FLUFFY FAUNA So, who are my best non-wool fluff creators? Here are my favorites, in no particular order. Kid Mohair Angora goats produce long, curly, shiny mohair locks. Look for the kid grade produced by young goats as…

In my spinning practice, I like combining a variety of techniques and skills—both simple and complex—to create interesting yarns. The classic four-stranded cabled yarn structure is a perfect starting point for intentional yarn design, and I am fascinated by the many ways that texture can be incorporated in the constructions of cabled yarns. Cabled yarns have at least four plies and two plying passes, all of which can be modified in different combinations, so there is an endless diversity of yarns waiting to be explored. CLASSIC FOUR-STRANDED CABLED YARN STRUCTURE A standard cabled yarn is constructed with at least three layers of twist and has a texture unique to this yarn structure. A cabled yarn can be spun in either direction, depending on whether you begin with Z-spun (clockwise) singles…

I am a weaver who also enjoys spinning. I tend to spin what I call “Gretchen yarn,” which can be a singles, a two-ply yarn, or chain-plied but is always a smooth, fine yarn. Sometimes this smooth, fine yarn is an energized singles for weaving collapsed dimensional cloth, and sometimes it is a thin silk singles for weaving a gauzy fabric. I share studio space with Emily Wohlscheid of Bricolage Studios (see page 20), and you can’t be around her for long without thinking about adding texture to a project with her batts. The challenge became how to make something other than Gretchen yarn and how to use it in a way that still fits in my weaving comfort zone. I wanted to spin heavy yarn and weave fine cloth.…

People created twine, yarn, and fine sewing thread long before there is evidence of spinning equipment in the historical timeline. Spindle whorls appear in the archaeological record in the Neolithic period, about seven thousand years ago, while three-ply cordage made from tree bark fiber has been found dating to nearly fifty thousand years ago. Paleolithic “Venus” figurines show women wearing textile belts and hair coverings. Other archaeological finds include string skirts and garments with beads that may have been valued for the sound they made when walking or dancing. Millennia before the evolution of spinning as we know it today, our ancestors turned cordage by hand. CORDAGE OBSESSION I first learned to spin in the 1970s on a wheel using bits of handcarded raw fleece. Since then, handspinning has followed…

On December 31, 2018, I fell on my face on cement and suffered a minor traumatic brain injury (TBI), or concussion. I was now on the road to months of cognitive, physical, vestibular, and visual therapy. I was devastated, terrified, and angry. Fortunately, I knew how to spin and owned a handspindle. It was the only thing I could do while sitting in bed listening to audiobooks. I couldn’t watch television or walk to the bathroom or kitchen without an escort, and I struggled to write or speak a coherent sentence for weeks. My mom’s 90th birthday was to be celebrated with a surprise party at my brother’s home in Colorado the following May. My therapists said I needed a goal, so I decided to handspin and weave a throw…

USA ARIZONA Grandma’s Spinning Wheel 6544 E. Tanque Verde #150 Tucson, AZ 85715 Ph 520 290-3738 spinningramma@aol.com www.grandmasspinningwheel.com CALIFORNIA The Village Spinning & Weaving 425-B Alisal Rd Solvang, CA 93463 Ph 888 686-1192 Toll Free villagespinweave@mac.com www.villagespinweave.com COLORADO Bountiful 211 Green Mountain Dr Livermore, CO 80536 Ph 970 482-7746 Toll-free 877 586-9332 info@bountifulspinweave.com www.bountifulspinweave.com Blazing Star Ranch 3424 S. Broadway Englewood, CO 80113 Ph 303 514-8780 blazingstarranch@gmail.com www.blazingstarranch.com ILLINOIS The Fold 3316 Millstream Rd Marengo, IL60152 Ph 815 568-0165 thefold@mc.net www.thefoldatmc.net INDIANA The Trading Post for Fiber Arts 8833 S. 5O W. Pendleton, IN 46064 Ph 765 778-3642 tradingpostfiber@aol.com www.tradingpostfiber.com KENTUCKY The Woolery 859 E Main St STE 1A Frankfort, KY 40601 Ph 502 352-9800 info@woolery.com www.thewoolery.com LOUISIANA Weavin’ Place 79434 Deluane Rd Folsom, LA 70437 Ph 985 796-8048 cheryl@weavinplace.com…

PAULA SIMMONS and Patrick Green influenced the resurgence of handspinning for five decades, beginning in the 1970s. Paula was the mentor for those of us yearning for anything fiber, natural, and aligned with the back-to-the-land ideal. She authored many books to share her knowledge: raising sheep, spinning and weaving with wool, even cooking with green tomatoes and too many zucchini. Her vast knowledge as a shepherdess/spinner was clearly conveyed in her books. Spinning and Weaving with Wool, first published in 1978, remains a valuable resource today. With an engineer’s inquisitive mind and a builder’s heart, Patrick liked the challenge of designing and making things. When the spinners in his area inquired if he could make a drumcarder, he spent many nights after work experimenting and getting feedback, which resulted in…

GV Pencheff crafts exquisite fiber arts tools from a variety of hardwoods. The diz and threader pair in bloodwood are silky smooth, and the diz has three orifice sizes. These beauties are sure to raise your blending projects to a new level.  gvpencheff.etsy.com A wonderfully squishy Summer Sunset Batt Combo from Colibri Studio is proof that you can have a smooth prep and fun locks at the same time. The 1.4-ounce batt (Merino, silk noil, bamboo, and Bluefaced Leicester) comes with 1.5 ounces of dyed locks. The combinations are endless! colibristudio.etsy.com Luscious Valais Blacknose sheep locks can add silky texture to any project. Sold in 25-gram bundles, these staples from Fluffy Fox Fibers can be used for felting, spinning, and more. The bouncy waves are about 7 inches in length.…

For more than a decade, I have been creating batts inspired by textures and colors of vintage fabric prints, movie posters, children’s book illustrations, and the works of art I admire. More recently, the challenge to re-create natural life and objects has become one of the main focuses of my work. When building these batts, I start with a selection of fleeces and fiber types, basing my decisions on fiber structure and natural color. I dye these various fibers as needed before blending them on a drumcarder. Each fiber component plays an important part in the blend; the crimp of a CVM (California Variegated Mutant) fleece could be just as important to the final result as a custom dye mix or the type of carding cloth I use. I have…

• Don’t let go of your fiber supply during or right after adding a bead. The escaping twist will undo all your fancy handiwork! If you must walk away from your wheel, secure the yarn by wrapping it around a peg or hook to keep the twist in place. • Plan where and how frequently to place your beads. Lampwork beads add considerable weight to the yarn. Because I weave with my handspun yarn, I add heavier beads to the handspun singles that will form the beginning and end of woven shawls where I would like additional weight. • Small beads typically add very little weight and can generally be spread throughout your yarn and added more closely together.…

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Slub yarns, sometimes called thick-and-thin yarns, are named for their characteristic repeating bumps along an otherwise thin yarn. Undulating between thick and thin sections, slub yarns add texture and variation to handspun yarn. When I teach intermediate spinners, I like to follow Sarah Anderson’s lead and use slub yarns as a tool to help students learn to have better control over the thickness, or gauge, of their yarns (see Resources). During a recent class, one student asked about predicting how a slub yarn might look once it is plied and knitted. This led to quite a few other questions: How do slubs look when they overlap with each other? What about when two thin spots overlap in a plied slub yarn? Is it best to make slubs at regular intervals,…

A few years ago, a fellow spinner came to our Wasatch Woolpack Handspinners guild meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah, with a big box of fiber to give away. No one seemed to want the humble ginned cotton—colorful wools were more appealing—so I brought the cotton home with me. I had never spun ginned cotton before, and I looked forward to trying something new. A cotton boll harvested from the plant contains multiple seeds, each at the center of a cluster of fiber. A cotton gin mechanically separates the seed from the fiber; during this process, some of the fiber might become tangled, and some plant matter is crushed and mixed throughout the fiber. The resulting preparation is an intermediate step in commercial cotton processing. When we find this fiber preparation,…

I HAVE NEVER BEEN as excited and inspired by a natural-dyeing book as I was after reading Journeys in Natural Dyeing by Kristine Vejar and Adrienne Rodriguez. It is a beautiful book filled with interesting and artful photography. More importantly, it contains clear and easy-to-understand instructions for basic natural-dye techniques for wool, silk, and cotton along with further explorations, such as composting Japanese indigo for creating an indigo vat, using mushroom dyes, eco-printing and batik, and cold-bath dyeing. Each chapter features the authors’ experiences during their visit to one of the four locations this journey took them to—Iceland, Mexico, Japan, and Indonesia—in addition to the dyers, dyestuffs, and techniques that were used there. Vejar and Rodriguez lay out a palette of colors inspired by each location to show the reader…

Designer and pattern Bonnie Baker, Fergus Shrug. Fiber Frabjous Fibers Bluefaced Leicester, Cathedral and Stained Glass plied together for the edging. Locally sourced alpaca yarn used for the body of the shrug. Wheel Kromski Fantasia. Singles direction Z-spun. Plying direction S-spun. Yarn classification/weight DK/worsted. Hook H-8 (5 mm). Gauge 15 stitches and 12 rows = 4" in DC ribbing. The Fergus Shrug is the first sweater I’ve made with handspun. I wanted something loose fitting because I found myself feeling self-conscious after the birth of my daughter, and trying to figure out how to dress my new shape proved to be difficult. What I liked about this shrug was that it did not require a ton of yardage, the construction was simple, and the pattern didn’t need much fitting. The spin for…

Most spinners are familiar with thick-and-thin yarns, which repeatedly undulate between gauges. When knitted, these yarns create varying degrees of bumpy, textured fabric. What happens when we separate the two, creating a thick yarn and a thin yarn for intentional texture in knitted fabrics? After blending and spinning (see page 38), I tried several knit/purl patterns, slip-stitch motifs, and brioche to see what would happen. THE SWATCHES I chose to match the colors of the yarns to emphasize the effect of the contrasting thicknesses in the knitting patterns. For the sake of conformity, I used the same needle size (US 7 [4.5 mm]) to knit most of the swatches. I chose this needle size to correspond with the thicker yarn, and I used the same size for knitting the thin yarn.…

If you are going to spin this style of yarn often, I recommend making a PVC niddy-noddy to help with wet-finishing. Unlike a wooden niddy-noddy, PVC can be fully immersed in water. After winding your beaded yarn onto a waterproof niddy-noddy, give it a plunge into a bucket of hot water followed by a plunge in very cold water. This will full the yarn to settle the twist and increase durability while keeping the yarn organized and under tension. Alternatively, you can cover a wooden niddy-noddy with plastic wrap and spray your yarn with hot water to finish. Either way, allow the yarn to dry before removing the yarn from the niddy-noddy. Do not put ties on the skein until it is dry but do put ties on before removing.…

I am a spinner who loves making all sorts of yarns—from fine to bulky, smooth to textured. However, I tend to knit with traditional yarns for fine-gauge lace shawls and Fair Isle sweaters, so I’m always looking for great ways to use the handspun yarns that I like spinning but not wearing. Since most of us are spending more time at home these days, I decided to knit a bright, cheerful pillow that celebrates the many textures of our spinning lives. The pattern included here is written for the heavy worsted/light chunky yarns that I used, but the concept is a recipe that you can easily adapt to almost any combo of yarn and pillow form you wish. The pattern starts with a knitted square, and stitches are picked up…

My intention for this wrap was to use a textured, thick weft in a way that would showcase the texture and also be gauzy and drapey. To accomplish this, I used a fine warp and weft with a textured handspun. For the textured weft, I split each batt into three parts and alternated between the two batts to make the resulting yarn more regularly textured. I spun the singles using a short-forward draw on my folding Lendrum wheel set at a 12:1 ratio. I plied the textured singles with the equivalent of a 30/2 thread, 60/2 silk in Black and Pacific (WEBS) held together for Betty’s Wrap. After plying, I washed each yarn with mild soap and dried them with no weights. I wound my warp of 30/2 silk (Henry’s…

As spinners, we know that twist is what holds our fibers together as yarn. Because twist always wants to travel to areas of less resistance, thick spots tend to untwist and draft apart. Slubs, on the other hand, can stay intact by relying on the twist of the surrounding thin spots to hold them in place. The trick is that a slub needs to be slightly shorter than the staple length of the fiber it is made from. In The Spinner’s Book of Yarn Designs, Sarah Anderson likens this concept to a wrapped piece of hard candy: Twist at either end of the wrapper holds the piece intact, whereas a wrapper made from two overlapping pieces would draft apart in the middle. Knowing that a slub, accidental or intentional, is just…

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