Spinning Fiber into Yarn

Original content from Threads of Peru Spinning is the process of turning the raw wool and fibers, shorn from the animals, into strong, consistent useful threads. Quechua weavers use a drop spindle (pushka), which is similar to a wooden top with an elongated axis. The pushka varies in size with the diameter of thread being … Read more

Learn How To Spin With A Drop Spindle

 I had learned how to spin on a spinning wheel, but not a drop spindle.  My daughter had figured out how to spin with a drop spindle, and my neighbor, and I’ve been to fiber festivals and seen kids walking around spindling.  It looked hard. Finally, when a group of gals wanted me to teach … Read more

How To Use Hand Cards

The purpose of Hand Carding is to disentangle, separate, clean, straighten and blend fibers together for spinning into yarn.  Carding is a type of woolen preparation, where air is introduced between the fibers and can be trapped as you spin, resulting in a loftier yarn. The tools used are called Hand Cards.  Hand carders look a … Read more

How To Use A Ball Winder and Swift

Anyone that plays with yarn will be interested in two great tools, a Swift and a Ball Winder.                    Otto and Joanne Strauch, owners of Strauch Fiber Equipment and makers of fine tools for spinners, demonstrate how to make a center-pull ball using these two must-have tools.

The Niddy Noddy

As I learned about fiber and fiber art, I was introduced to some very interesting terms, one of them being niddy noddy. What in the world? According to Wikipedia, a niddy-noddy (plural niddy-noddies) is a tool used to make skeins from yarn. It consists of a central bar, with crossbars at each end, offset from each other by 90°. … Read more

Sit-n-Knit or Crochet or Spin

For those of you that live in our area, you are invited to come visit and just … Come hang out with fiber friends!  Drop in the first Saturday of the month for a few relaxing hours of knitting or crocheting or spinning on the farm. Lessons are not provided, but beginners are always welcome. If … Read more

Plying With Beads

  Although stringing the beads was a bit challenging, and manipulating my single fiber strand without getting it tangled in the strung beads during the playing process could have made me crazy, I was very pleased with the end results!  These are the hand-dyed Suri Locks that I started with.   I spun carelessly from uncarded … Read more

My New Yarn

So, here is where it all starts, with happy, healthy alpacas! Stress does affect fiber quality – see the smiles on these two? Meet Unlimited Joy and Ariella!  There are two different breeds of alpacas, suri and huacaya, and the difference is their fleece.  A suri’s fleece grows vertically to the ground, in dreadlocks, and … Read more

How To Spin From A Batt

Say, you’ve bought a carder and you are carding your own fiber. You doff it off the drum and now you have a large mass. Now what?  This mass you just created would be called a batt, but how does one spin it? I found this Photo Tutorial on Flickr that might be helpful. There … Read more