Botch all the things!

Really neat video!

CORE CONCEPT: What is spinning? 3:01–3:31

THE TECHNIQUE: 5:21-7:00

How to add twist using a pencil: 3:35

Hand position 3:49 - 5:20

How much fiber you’ll want to work with 4:33

How to do it: 5:21

Why it works: (demonstration with a roll of toilet paper): 7:54

Definitions:

Drafting: preparing processed wool to be spun (Processing may include washing, dying, combing, carding, etc).

Staple length: the length of each “hair” of wool (1:49)

Other major concepts (unprofessional wording courtesy of me):

What kind of wool will be unwieldy and challenging to spin when you are learning (00:38 - 1:04)

Combed top = fibers are arranged parallel 1:06 - 1:13

Stretching out the fibers so that they pull past each other and you have a less dense length of fiber: 1:37

Finding the staple length of processed fibers: 2:27

Fibers drifting vs fibers locked in place 3:01-3:31

How twist turns fragile fiber to stronger yarn, how you add it, and how it can travel up into your drafted fiber 3:00

How twist will travel up into drafted fiber (and how kinking is normal): 7:02

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and with that all out of the way, time to start spindle #2 of this project

oh I do not like this spindle shaft, it is too long and too slick, so I’m going to try to fix that

sandpaper and saw to the rescue indeed!

The length is much improved! Still needs a couple more sanding passes but I’m pretty happy so far.

auressea

thanks for this REMINDER - we can modify our things! we can alter and customize our tools! (I keep forgetting i don't' need to struggle)

#making do #your singles are sooooooooo pretty I'm in love

If I may? In a fit of inspiration, frustration, and compulsion, I decided to move my favorite spindle whorl onto a longer shaft with a nicer hook, and swap that shaft's original whorl to a shorter, more-appropriate-to-be-wonky shaft (the whorl is fine but it's not as symmetrical/balanced as I'm used to, and is a little light for the shaft it was on).

The final result:

(I'm much happier using both)

laurajameskinney

was crawling around on the floor for like 2 hours blocking my dress #mydress and chat. my back. it hurts.

laurajameskinney

anyways. look at this.

laurajameskinney

ok great job looking everybody. now this.

#thank goodness for visionaries like yourself #to remind of of what beautiful creations may exist #if we are patient enough to make them #i love the colors

On creative dissatisfaction: a relevant quote

When I researched gloves from earlier times, I discovered something important. Even when the knitters were old and had a lot of experience, they weren't necessarily more competent or clever than us younger knitters. They followed patterns, made mistakes, fixed things later on—or let it be. The stitches might be both too tight and too loose. There might be a hole at the base of the thumb and the lines between the fingers didn't always match. What did knitters in the past do better than us today? First and foremost they were more accepting of mistakes they made. I know knitters who rip and struggle, who unravel their knitted sweater as they sit and complain. Some toss out the yarn and needles because they can't continue unless the garment is perfect and error-free. Today we expect that everything that is made should be perfect, with a clear and obvious pattern and mistake-free finishing. Perhaps it is because we see so many mass-produced goods. When a design is prepared for industrial production, the pattern must always be suitable for the machines and the product must be free of mistakes. Knitting is folk handwork and not high art. It is precisely those small errors, the bits that don't quite fit, that indicate a handmade item. These are the qualities that give life to the garment, as opposed to the stiffness that characterizes perfect artistry and mechanical production.

Terri Shea, excerpt from "Basic Techniques" (introduction to Annemor Sundbø's Norwegian Mittens & Gloves)

Whenever I find myself fretting about whether or not a creative product is good enough, I find myself muttering "it's a folk art" under my breath.

#this brought to you by a discussion on beta readers #but I think it applies to many creative hobbies #so what if my sweater uses a different cast-off on one side of the button band compared to the other?#I'm the only one who's gonna see when I wear it and I don't think it's worth the effort of frogging #of course the actual quote is followed by a bit that reminds you that if the mistake bothers you enough that you won't wear it #then by all means fix it #and that philosophy has helped me deal with mistakes in my knitting #i will agonizingly frog and re-knit something if I know it's gonna perpetually bug me #but that one row on the sweater that I knit a row early (slightly distorting the lice pattern)? meh.#(especially if i found it after finishing. which included steeking and making a button band in addition to securing the loose ends)

So my sister wants to start sewing more, because

a. She’s 5′ 11″ and can never find pants long enough for her legs or shirts long enough for her arms.

b. She hates synthetic fibers as much as I do and it’s difficult to find natural fiber clothes that aren’t made of cotton

c. She’s a biologist and would physically fistfight microplastics if given half a chance

So her gift from mom and dad for her birthday was a sewing machine. Not a super expensive one but a good solid serviceable one.

And recently she asked “So where do I GET wool or linen and thread that isn’t polyester” and mom was like ‘go ask your sister’

And I, of course, crashed into the group text like “GET A PEN I HAVE WEBSITES FOR U” and honestly I’m thrilled about this

“Where did u get all this”

“Bets, u know I’m a 15th degree blackbelt of buying shit on the internet”

“oh yeah tru”

hermesmuse

Op can may we inquire about the website list

Linen; https://www.graylinelinen.com/

cotton and Silk thread; https://redrockthreads.com/

Linen thread and wool fabric; https://burnleyandtrowbridge.com/ (they’ve got wool stuffs and worsted wool fabric for $15 a yard! I just got three yards of navy worsted wool I’m making a constellation winter skirt from)

More linen thread and wool; https://wmboothdraper.com/ (just ordered wool broadcloth to make a coat)

Silk fabric (THE best place to get silk lining fabrics and raw silk fabric):https://www.dharmatrading.com/

A varying assortment of wool and silk and cotton and even some leather, use coupon code spring2020 for 50% off your full order, worked yesterday when I bought some stuff there; https://metrotextilesnyc.com/

Wool. You want wool coating for under $20 a yard? Sure you do. It’s here. Not a huge variety of colors, most are black or brown, but hey https://www.fashionfabricsclub.com/Catalog?refinementIds=4096748&Keyword=wool&pageSize=16

wingedtyger

I don’t know a lot about sewing, but I want to make or have my mom make some linen pants & shirts for when I’m watering, because it gets to 105 here and we have mosquitos so I need to be covered. What type of linen do I buy? Also, linen pajama shorts, yes/no?

(I’ve been wearing my renfaire pants which are a linen mix, I think. But the frikking mosquitos that hide in the tomatoes get my arms)

#resources #sewing #fabric

Medium weight is what I’d go with.

And linen pajama shorts is a HARD yes.

beggars-opera

Renaissance Fabrics is good for all sorts of things

Mood doesn’t specialize in natural fabrics but they do have basically every fabric ever made so

the-merry-otter

For wools, I cannot recommend Woolsome enough! They’re a bit more expensive then the above links, but they have a spectacular range of colours and weights, as well as diamond pattern and herringbone weaves. They also have a range of linens, though not as extensive.

Historical fabrics for re-enactors

justgarb

Tiedtohistory.com has sheer voile linen

The Linen Lab has a variety of weaves, weights, and colors available

Period Fabric has a variety of wools, but switch to the full website if you’re on mobile

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robin-prints

some more bands from the inkle loom made from random yarns from my stash. at a certain point I tried to see how wide I could go and I think the widest one is about 8 or 9 inches. I want to try connecting some together to make larger pieces of fabric!!!

elodieunderglass

Dr Glass problems (bought a large volume of very fine sashiko thread that must be wound onto something before use) require Dr Glass solutions (whittle a wooden clothes peg to fit a drill and drill the thread on)

elodieunderglass

Sexiest thing a man can do is tension thread

fibrearts

Starry Night Microsweater

2022 1.3" x 1.6" ~50,000 stitches, 76 stitches/inch 500+ hours in the making. Over 70 different colors of silk thread including thread combinations

jabberwockypie

That’s Althea Crome’s work. You’ve seen her work before if you’ve ever seen the movie Coraline because she did the teeny tiny star sweater and gloves for the stop motion puppets to wear.

She does, however, work even smaller.

#insane #absolutely phenomenal #knitting

yarn-chicken

It's warm... it's fashionable.... it's hot coo-ture!

i made a the pigeon sweater (by Michelle Tsai) for my friend! i've been wanting to make another top for ages, but I have way too many sweaters already, so when she mentioned seeing a sweater she really wanted it was like serendipity 🕊️

i'm so psyched with how this turned out; she lives over a thousand miles from me so i had nothing but some measurements, math, and a lot of faith that this would fit properly (and it does!! perfectly!!)

cryptic-curation

This sick bleach shirt I made. Something to showcase my undying love for prehistoric cave art.

Some of the bleach burned thru the shirt bc this was my first time bleaching anything ever, but it kinda adds to it.

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dangerphd

yoooooooo. @scrixels may have created a monster with this post. 😄🤘

for anyone worried about language barrier, I found* both of these books super clear and easy to understand without being able to read any japanese.

por ejemple

I also read this blog tutorial, and am looking forward to more complex designs once I've gotten it down.

about to switch colors! 🤩🤗

dangerphd

denim / cotton thread and denim / polyester thread, not the classic silk...but in keeping with the original notion of using up scraps to make something pretty and useful, and I like the triple thick denim for pushing needles with these utilitarian devices.

now, back to patching and mending and darning and whatever...

I am 80% sure i’m keeping this spin as a singles yarn to weave with, but every plyback sample tempts me to ply + knit

okay good night <3

#glorious

livingadagio

THAT'S IT, IT'S FINALLY ALL WASHED!! The whole Romeldale CVM fleece!!

Now to comb all the fleece that hasn't already been combed...

livingadagio

Spent most of my free time the last three and a half days combing wool. So far I've got one bag down, and four more to go still. This is not including the wool from this fleece that I already had combed before I finished washing the rest of it, which I left out of the picture.

I definitely can not keep up this pace or my arm will fall off lol, so I imagine the rest of the bags will take longer.

livingadagio

So now my problem is that I really like combing wool, and anytime I'm kind of bored or want something to keep my hands busy, my brain immediately goes "let's comb some of that fleece!" Meanwhile, my poor shoulder is like "PLEASE, A DAY OFF, I'M BEGGING YOU!!" But I must comb. It is just as relaxing as spinning to me, but it's much easier to do at my desk while I watch things and AFK in FFXIV.

#a lot of the fleece was gotland which has basically no give #and i was spinning it a lot thicker than was easy #fortunately I spun some cormo for a while at uber-fine thinness which meant I had a few days of extreme gentleness & slowness #which i think did the trick

Oof that is a MOOD. I spent the past month processing & spinning fiber like a madwoman and my brain was happily skipping along while my hands were crying out for me to stop.

The problem is, all of my hobbies use my hands in little fiddly ways and I couldn't switch to a different hobby to give my hands a break. so.... well. I'm playing chicken.

For a little variation in movement, maybe you could flick the tips of the fleeces with a flick carder or dog slicker brush for a while, then comb them fully later when you've had some time to recover? That's what I've done to make combing less strength-intensive when I've been working with very inelastic fibers. Breaking it down into two steps seems a little easier on the hands overall.

Bravo for getting all that fleece washed, though!! no small feat

crookedtines

Finally bought some dye and have been having so much fun with optical color mixing. I decided to start with cmyk primaries to get some vibrant color options.

So far I've only mixed up the main batch of colors, but I'll split them up and create a palatte of tints and shades once I have access to a scale again.

I don't have any fancy tools and have been blending the fiber by hand, so it's probably best I have a forced break for the sake of my fingers. Once I'm done I should have a very useful set of 57 2g swatches to play with! (Plus 5 more for a set of grayscale swatches)

If I'm still up for it, I might repeat the whole thing with my classic red, yellow, blue primary dye set. For a truly massive set of heather swatches.

crookedtines

I'll create a comprehensive guide to all the color mixes and my process once I'm done, but in the meantime here's a mixing guide for the colors I've already done!

The ratios are presented in the same order as the wool swatches in the photo above it. I didn't simplify any of the ratios so you'll have to deal with 2:2s instead of 1:1s, oops.

For anyone curious, I used brilliant yellow, deep magenta, and caribbean blue from Dharma dyes on their corriedale wool for my base colors.

I’m kinda surprised that nalbinding isn’t as popular as crochet and knitting tbh because it has an even lower barrier of entry tools wise and unlike crochet and knitting it makes fabric that you can cut.

I guess it’s because it’s slower or something.

Nalbinding aka needle binding is when you use yarn and a big sewing needle to make fabric btw

It also has a lot of different kinds of stitches you can do that make different densities of fabric.

Some people even make rugs.

thewolfwaitsbelow

I feel like part of it might be casual people are generally aware of the existence of crochet and knitting, even if they don’t know very much about either, but have never heard of nalbinding

Yeah I hadn’t heard of it until recently and I ordered a big bone needle for myself to try it out and that should be arriving soon.

I was surprised that I’d never heard of it though. It’s older than knitting and crocheting and even though it’s been done all over the world it’s super relevant to Nordic culture and my grandmother and I are both into keeping in touch with our roots a bit so I’m surprised I’ve never heard of it.

It seems like the sort of thing that would be popular even if not as popular as crocheting and knitting, considering the low barrier of entry.

the-color-of-sound-is-space

You also don’t need a bunch of different sized needles for nalbinding or whatever. The size of the stitch is controlled either completely freehand or by pulling it against one of your fingers. Most people who have a lot of nalbinding needles seem to either have tried out wood, bone, and metal ones to see which kind they liked or they enjoy carving wood or bone and like making their own needles as an extra hobby.

It’s also a lot easier to freehand and adjust as you go than crochet or knitting and you mostly go by inches instead of rows and number of stitches so a large number of accessories like stitch markers or whatever isn’t really necessary.

Maybe the lack of accessories also makes it unpopular idk. People do like collecting things in their nests.

I've been wanting to do so, I cannot find anyone who can teach me, and any books I can find on it are Ass in the Visual Learning department. Otherwise I'd be making the hell outta some nalbinded fabric

I found this channel by a nice man who makes up close tutorials

I create videos on YouTube to learn people how to needlebind using two fingers and your thumb. Needlebinding helps people to relax, relieve

I thought this would be kind of a niche post to make but I was quickly reminded that I’m on tumblr, the website full of gay people with one billion hobbies.

So my bone needle actually came this evening (yay!) and I’ve started trying this for real. It clicks in my brain way easier than crochet does. I’ve gotta work up the muscle memory but I think I can do this.

The downside as a beginner is that undoing mistakes is more time consuming than with knitting or crochet. You’ve gotta like sew your mistakes out backwards. Disadvantages of making a really sturdy fabric I guess.

I like the feel of this bone needle though and don’t think I’ll be trying the wooden or metal ones.

Also I think I’m gonna have to get good at doing Russian joining if I decide to get good at nalbinding because I don’t have wool yarn and the ends won’t felt together if it’s not at least 50% wool. A small price to pay for using big bone needle though.

Anyways curse of new fiber craft be upon ye.

#nalbinding #tbh the reason it's not popular in the english world is mostly because it fell out of use as a handcraft earlier #it's kinda challenging (relative to something like knitting) to find english-language resources #though a little easier now than it was #Youtube

@what-even-is-thiss re:russian joins & felting, not necessarily! When I was researching for a lecture, I came across a silent film on the Norsk Folkemuseum's channel that includes a segment on nalbinding. At about 9:39, you can see a different joining method that doesn't involve felting.

I was tickled to find this because I'd been looking at a lot of stuff made out of not-particularly-feltable animal hair and wondering how it worked, only to find that the answer was: there's no reason you have to connect the ends at all. You can just weave in a new tail of yarn and start where the old yarn left off, and since it won't unravel you don't have to do anything more than that.

Also, this channel has a lot of videos about stitches: https://www.youtube.com/@Neulakintaat

Most of them are in English and Finnish. I found them very helpful when I was trying to figure out certain stitches.

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handspunyarnsource

Just like source-blogs for fandom TV shows and movies, where you can see all the wonderful posts from the fandom in one place, without having to worry about following one million different blogs—but for WOOL!

Ask box is open for any questions or polls that you want to outsource to the fiber community at large 🐑

🚧 RESOURCE LIST UNDER CONSTRUCTION🚧

#SPINBLR SHOPS

SEND ME YOUR SHOP LINKS IN A DM OR ASK TO BE LISTED HERE!

BOOKS:

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Yarnitecture by Jillian Moreno

The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook by Carol Ekarius, Deborah Robson

The Field Guide to Fleece by Carol Ekarius, Deborah Robson

Respect the Spindle by Abby Franquemont

BLOGS:

SEND ME YOUR BLOG RECS IN A DM OR ASK!

Abby's Yarns Online

VIDEOS:

SEND ME YOUR VIDEO RECS IN A DM OR ASK!

Jillianeve (youtube)

🐑🌈 ANY RESOURCES YOU WANT TO SEE LISTED HERE? TUMBLR POSTS? VIDEOS?? BOOKS??? SEND THEM TO MEEEEEE 🌈🐑

Here's one on my list: Yarn Spinning with a Modern Twist, by Vanessa Kroening. It's mostly about art yarn, but is aimed at spindle users, which is cool because most of the resources I find on art yarn assume you're working with a wheel.

#spinning

arctic-hands

DOES ANYONE HAVE AN ACTUALLY INFORMATIVE DROP SPINDLE TUTORIAL VIDEO FOR ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS I swears to god youtube tutorials are just recipe blogs in motion

linguisticparadox

I thought I'd watched videos but I don't see any in my yt history? Here's a good tutorial with pictures that I'd bookmarked:

animate-mush

@sireenica - the people are demanding drop spindle tutorials