I'm so sad. I bought a spinning wheel. It came yesterday. It's broken. It keeps falling apart and even when it's all together and I tried to spin...It made a terrible rattling sound. I'm so sad! What a pain in the butt this is. I feel like having a tantrum. I honestly feel just like 2-year-olds must feel when they don't get what they want. I just want to stomp my feet and cry.

I love my spinning class! I'm having so much fun. There are only two other people in the class so we're getting a lot of individual attention.

I was really stuck on how much twist to put into the fiber. I felt that I could draft pretty well but that I just didn't trust the quality of my yarn. I was also getting really worried that it was all about counting twists per inch (boring for me). I talked to my teacher about this and she showed me how to do a ply test (just letting a piece of yarn ply back on itself). She asked if this was yarn I'd like to knit with. The yarn was fluffy and the plies were pretty open so it looked like my needles would just split it in half as I knit. So I added more twist and tried the ply test again. Looked really good! She asked again if it was yarn I'd like to knit with. And I was like, "What about the twists per inch and the angle of twist?" She just smiled and said, "Is that yarn you'd like to knit with?" Bing! Light goes off in my head and now I'm so excited about spinning!!!

I am currently working on a skein that I'll try to ply and then photo. I'm really proud of how this yarn is turning out.

Handspun Singles

I started knitting a little with this handspun. It's only the third time I've actually knit my own handspun yarn (I'm a beginner and sometimes the yarn is just not knitable - and by that I mean it just isn't good). I thought it looked pretty even but as I knit I can see that it's not really even at all! The fingers and the needles shall reveal all!

Even though it's not evenly spun, it's still really pretty and making a beautiful piece.

And my happiest news - I'm starting a spinning class tomorrow! I've been doing it with some help from an Etsy friend, some reading, and lots of watching YouTube videos. I'm so excited to actually sit down with an expert spinner and learn a little something.

Have a crafty day y'all!

I have made some big changes to my shop! I got a job *YAY* and so I had to prepare my shop to handle my new life as a full-time teacher, all the time mother, and free-time crafter. I unlisted all my made-to-order items. It's back to ready made and one-of-a-kind items for me. Plus, I'm no longer shipping to addresses outside the US. It'll make shipping a lot easier since I can ship from home.

In other news, I'm buying a spinning wheel! I'm taking a beginning spinning class starting in just a few days. I'm so excited. Spinning is so fun. And so relaxing. Can't wait to get started!

Check out these pictures to see how my spinning (on my drop spindle) is coming along:

Handspun Yarn

Handspun singles. This is two or three tiny balls of hand painted roving I bought off Etsy. I think they spun up really nicely together!

Pretty evenly spun singles, I think.

Some places were definitely overly twisted but all in all it's a nice skein.

I'm so happy with this skein! This is also from the odds-n-ends bag of roving I got. This is two different hand dyed rovings, handspun, and then plied together. The plying was really hard! It's not at all balanced but it's pretty and it's strong.

Look at the colors! And seriously, didn't I do a pretty good job?

Ta da!

I don't know about these skeins. These were made from some commercially prepared merino roving. It was nice to spin but I'm not too happy with how it turned out.

Pretty evenly done....for a beginner.

More handspun yarn

You are looking at handspun yarn from my drop spindle. This was from an odds-n-ends bag I bought off Etsy.

A little over twist here and there.

I am extremely pleased with how this one turned out!  Singles can be hard to produce.  They need to be twisted enough to not fall apart but too much twist means they will look awful knitted up.