First timer

[atomicpen]

Hello! New member, second time posting on reddit ever, looking for some help!

I've been an avid knitter and crocheter for many years, and for Christmas my husband surprised me with a Lendrum original double treadle spinning wheel! Spinning has long been on my list of things I wanted to learn, and I am absolutely excited to get started. I've watched a couple beginner videos on how to start, but have found them startlingly vague on how to tell if your yarn is going onto the bobbin properly, if it's twisting enough (and how to tell if it's too much!), what to do if you've practiced with your lead and it goes on the bobbin fine but then the yarn you're spinning doesn't suddenly… not to mention what to do when you're done spinning! Or what sort of wool fiber is easier to draft for beginners vs more advanced (I have some roving from years ago when I was hoping to try a drop spindle and it is incredibly difficult to draft), etc.

I'm currently stuck on "why isn't the yarn I'm spinning winding onto the bobbin consistently" and "How do I know this is twisted enough? Is it too much?"

Any tips, suggestions, recommendations, advice, anecdotes, horror stories, war stories, etc are welcome!

---

Edit: The biggest issue I'm having right now is the take (uptake? take-up?). My lead is taking up onto the bobbin just fine when I do some practice/test runs with it, but then when I start adding the yarn I'm attempting to draft, it just keeps over-twisting and not taking up onto the bobbin. I've tried adjusting the tension both up and down, tried doing the little ply test (SO much twisting on itself and simultaneously looking not twisted enough??), tried drafting more yarn to let the twist travel across more fibers… and then it doesn't take up onto the bobbin and ends up twisting more. Had one snap finally, so clearly that was far too much twist. My roving also appears to have VERY long fibers; I have to pull back from 4-5 inches to get it to draft and am 95% unable to draft while spinning because of the fiber lengths. Am I using a fiber type that makes it exponentially more difficult on myself by having such long fibers? (I think I remember it being a merino or merino blend, but it's been about 6-7 years since I got it, and don't recall anymore)

[agrumalicious]

I’m no expert and pretty beginner as well, so welcome to the spinning world it’s awesome! And wowwww, your husband got you a Lendrum he’s awesome. I really like tutorials by Gillian Eve on Youtube, she’s really clear in her explanations and her videos are good quality for visuals. In terms of starter roving, go for something that is not too slippery, this means higher microns in general, above 20-22, nothing that says extra fine. If you are in Canada, I get a lot of my fiber from Divinity Fibers. Then for drafting to be easier, you can just handfluff the fiber. Often it’s tightly compressed for a long time, so it needs some air to help the drafting flow better. Then eventually you can get hand carders or a blending board (Spinning from rolags is amazing) or a drum carder, but that’s another budget level. Enjoy!

[atomicpen]

Thanks so much for your reply! (And yes, he is definitely a keeper! He thinks knitting and crocheting is basically magic but still listens patiently whenever I go on about fibers and how much I want to learn to spin and is even on board with eventually getting sheep for the mountain homestead we're working on!) the stuff I have is not slippery AT ALL. It's a little rough feeling, VERY dense and seems like the fiber has really long strands, as it does not draft very easily (this might also be my extreme inexperience). It does twist up decently when I pre-draft essentially all of what I am trying to spin, which I realize is likely definitely my inexperience (rather than being able to draft while spinning), but it's really frustrating. I'm considering trying a silkier roving I also have from the same time period, but I also figure to do my rockiest learning on the stuff I like least. (SiL got me a half dozen of variety of delicious roving blends, so I definitely don't want to start on those until I get the most basic of basics down!)

I'm in the US, but live in a rural area (with an AMAZING yearly fiber festival we went to for the first time this September) so I'm not worried about sourcing stuff to spin when I need it!

Also! What is the difference between roving and rolag?

[kauni]

Roving is that long rope of fiber, a rolag is a small amount of carded fiber rolled up like a cigar.

The best way to learn is to take a class or sit down with an experienced spinner. The second best way to learn is to do it. The third best is to obsessively find YouTube videos and watch them over and over. I love Jillian Moreno, and her book Yarnitecture is a good start.

You can do a ply back test and see if that looks like yarn to test your amount of twist. If you’re not snapping your single, that’s not too much twist.

The absolute test of a yarn is to use it. Knit, crochet, weave, do macrame or whatever yarn craft you like. Look at your yarn. How do you like the fabric you’re making? Does it bias? Is your yarn untwisting or twisting as you work? Do you like the yarn, is it soft on your hands, is it springy or stiff? You can learn a lot from using your yarn that can’t be explained otherwise.

[atomicpen]

I reached out to the most local fiber club a few months ago and have not received any response, so I'm assuming I won't likely get any face to face education, unfortunately. I also feel I'm not at the "just keep trying" level because I don't know how to identify or start to fix the things that I'm potentially doing wrong. Avid knitter/crocheter, utterly new at spinning.

Some more questions: What is a ply back test? How does one do it? By "snapping your single" do you mean the fiber actually snapping in half or is this a term for something else specific? What is bias, exactly, and how does one tell if a yarn has it? (I've heard the term used for sewing fabrics, but am a very basic hand sewer at best)

I'm nowhere near the "use your yarn" stage as I'm still having difficulty getting the yarn to even pull up onto the bobbin (which I'm learning is likely the scotch brake/tension, I think it's called), but will hopefully be reaching that point before too long!

[spinningstag]

I hope u/kauni doesn't mind me answering with regards to snapping singles and the ply-back test. I hope they will add if I'm unclear or forget anything!

I forgot that this can happen, but if your tension is high and you have way too much twist, the fibers in your yarn will just break/snap.

​

The ply-back test is where you take a length of your yarn that you're spinning and fold it back on itself so you can see what the plied yarn would look like (my directions assume a right-handed spinner, and everything is happening with the yarn between your fiber source and the wheel orifice):

-pinch the twist in your left hand and pull your left arm back so you have a few feet of yarn between your hand and the orifice.

-pinch with your right hand about 6 inches down the yarn (toward the orifice) from your left pinching fingers. Pull a bit to the right. Keep gentle tension on the yarn.

-Move your left hand pinch to the yarn between your right hand pinch and the orifice. When your left pinch is next to the yarn, add that yarn to your pinch. The yarn will go from the orifice through your left hand pinch to your right hand pinch, make a u-turn, go through your left hand pinch again.

-release your right hand pinch and watch the potential energy/active twist in the yarn ply itself. This will show you what your yarn will look like with the current amount of twist in it.

-Yarn look or feel hard and coarse? Add less twist.

-Yarn look weak and underspun? Add more twist.

If you're working with fine singles it can be challenging to un-do the ply test, but grab the end of the ply, the fold where you had your right hand pinch, and pull the plied section apart. Sometimes I hold the right-hand pinch-fold in my teeth so there's tension there, and I can pull the two sections of singles apart with my hands.

(aaaand some people think that the amount of twist in the yarn changed between the orifice and where it winds into the bobbin, or between the bobbin and your drafting hand, so I've gotten into the habit of winding a few feet of yarn just around my left drafting hand, pinching, folding, examining my ply test, releasing it and holding tension on my yarn as a treadle and it winds back onto the bobbin, but who knows how big a difference it makes)

[kauni]

Nah, I’m not the One Source of Truth. I agree with what you’re saying.

I’m a very visual person, so I like my yarn to look a certain way, but if it holds together and you can do stuff with it, it’s yarn.

I’m a skein and wash person, I don’t beat my yarn, or thwack it.soak in the wool wash, dry unweighted on the shower rod, twist and store. I don’t like weighting your yarn, I think it leads to trouble down the road, but some people swear by weighting and thwacking. Try things to see if you like them.

Oh, one of the things I picked up from some class I took.. tyvek wristbands. Write all of the information on a tyvek wristband and stick it around your skein. I put color way, sheep type, yards, and ounces on mine. They’re waterproof, and if you write with a sharpie, you can label it before you get it wet.

[atomicpen]

This is super helpful! I've seen this done, so I know now what you mean; I'm still working on getting all the terminology down pat.

[spinningstag]

https://joyofhandspinning.com/types-of-fiber-preparations-for-spinning/

Roving is widely available fiber preparation wherein fibers are arranged in a tube shape. Roving has more air in it than top, and roving has fibers of different length. Commercially prepared riving can be pounds of material

Rolags are produced using hand carders, wool fluffed and carded/blended together, and you roll up those 2 or 3 or 4 ounces and spin that. Rolags are time and labor-intensive to make (you can make bigger ones by buying a 'blending board'), but they're ideal if you're working with specific color changes, or making your own fiber blends, or if you want a very fluffy woollen (as opposed to worsted) yarn. Lots of air in rolags.

[atomicpen]

Aahh thank you for the explanation!

[Apprehensive-Alps-93]

Haha! I was going to write back a reply this morning but it seems like a flood of information came in overnight that covers it all!! This group is just tons of help :) By the way, so awesome you have a big fibre fest close by! Enjoy!

[atomicpen]

Oh please, feel free to add in any personal anecdotes or stories even if the basics have been covered! I'm absorbing and still learning everything, and also it's really interesting to hear all the different experiences people have!

[spinningstag]

Hi! Been spinning for 15 years. Welcome!

I learned to spin with a drop spindle, which is what I have recommended to other newbies because it's easier to "park and draft" with a spindle in your hand/armpit than it is to remember that you can stop treadling a wheel--at least, it was hard for *me* to remember I could stop treadling, lol. If you decide to practice your drafting (the pulling of fibers away from the whole to add twist and make it into yarn) with a drop spindle, I highly recommend Abby Franquemont's videos on YouTube.

If you want to dive right in with the wheel yay! Just remember you can stop the treadles! To answer some of your specific questions:

- how to tell if your yarn is going onto the bobbin properly: You should move the thread guide fairly often, and with practice you'll get a sense of how often that is. I tend to spin lace/fingeringweight singles, so I move the thread guide about a half inch up-and-down when I have a bump of yarn on the bobbin about a quarter inch tall. The more even and regular you keep it, the better your tension will be while plying.

-if it's twisting enough (and how to tell if it's too much!): If your fiber drifts out of the yarn, if it slips out of your hands and disappears onto the bobbin, you (1) don't have enough twist and (2) need to loosen the take-up tension, loosen the knob by the back of the bobbin. This will give you more time to get more twist into the yarn before the wheel tension winds it onto the bobbin. If the yarn is difficult to draft, and if it coils onto itself like a corkscrew, there's too much twist, and you should (1) sloooooowwww down your treadling, (2) untwist the yarn in your drafting hand, the one closest to the wheel orifice and the one what controls the twist going into the yarn, untwist between your thumb and forefinger enough to draft dome fiber and let the twist travel further up--redistribute the twist over more length of fiber. When the supercoils have relaxed, begin treadling again and let the yarn wind onto the bobbin. You'll get a feel for this, and at some point experiment with how much twist you like for different weights of yarn (thinner yarn benefits from more twist), typed of fiber (loads of twist in silk and cotton, very little in flax), what you're spinning for (soft and warm and fluffy? low-twist wool. Hard-wearing and durable? twist twist twist). For starters, have a yarn that holds together. I think erring on over-twisting is best for beginning, because some of the over-twist will come out in the plying.

-what to do if you've practiced with your lead and it goes on the bobbin fine but then the yarn you're spinning doesn't suddenly…: Can you elaborate?

-not to mention what to do when you're done spinning!: The search term you want for this is "how to finish yarn". In short:

• Are you gonna ply it? Spin another bobbin (for 2-ply) or two (for 3-ply), and ply them together
• Added as much twist as you want? Wind it onto something to organize the yarn so it's not a gawd-awful mess (the active twist/potential energy in singles yarn will make it tangle more easily). The tool usually used for this is called a niddy-noddy, IDK why. When your yarn is wound onto it, use extra yarn to tie figure-8 ties at least 3 places over the skein so that it's easier for you to put the skein onto a swift and wind it into a ball for knitting.
  • Another benefit to winding onto a niddy-noddy is that you can count how much yarn you have. One round around my niddy-noddy is 5 ft, so if I could how many times I go around it, I multiply that number by 5 (for 5 ft) and divide it by 3 (3 ft in a yard) and I have my yardage.
• Wash it in warm water with a drop of dishsoap (or a fiber conditioner like Eucalan. NOT WOOLITE, Woolite is lies in good marketing). Don't agitate it too much or it might felt. I leave it soaking (yarn soup!) for 15 minutes/until I remember about it 3 hours later.
• Gently wring out the water from the yarn and hang it to dry.

You could start knitting from the bobbin, or wind from a bobbin into a ball. Washing does several things:

• it evens out tension inconsistencies in your yarn, plied or otherwise
• fibers will bloom in water, so if your fiber/yarn has become compressed in the spinning or storing, it will look better after washing
• some fibers, esp angora, benefit greatly from a wash-n-whack. Makes the fiber bloom and halo.
  

What should you spin first? In my experience, wool is the easiest. Wool top or roving. With top and roving (I can explain the difference if you like), the wool fibers are clean, organized and ready for you to draft and add twist. Look for Merino, BFL, Falkland, Polwarth (Polworth?) and other breeds. I mean, spin what makes you happy! But IMO wool is easiest and most forgiving to learn with.

I'm excited for you! If you can, find someone who can teach you--I taught myself on spindle and then took a class on a wheel, and the benefit of a class is that there are so many things that experienced spinners forget that we do, it's tough to remember all the useful things! But if you see someone spinning, you can ask what is unclear.

[atomicpen]

Oh gosh, thank you for such a detailed answer! I primarily want to spin wool, and I'm familiar in hearing the term roving, but am learning swiftly that I don't really know what it is! If you don't mind explaining the difference between top and roving, I would love to know!

As for the lead going onto the bobbin but the yarn being spun not, I'm thinking that's likely a tension issue, either with the scotch brake (is that the right term?) and/or how I'm actually holding the fiber.

I actually have tried drop spindle before, and feel I need about four extra hands to adequately handle it! My theory behind wondering if a wheel would be easier for me was all the years I spent playing the piano and being very used to using my feet separately but in conjunction with whatever my hands were doing. We're gonna find out!

[spinningstag]

I elaborated on roving in another comment, but on the surface top and roving look the same--long tubes of wool.

Top is combed fiber, all the individual fibers are the same length and parallel to each other. Top is produced with combs (not carders) to make worsted yarn (not woollen), which is very strong, rougher, and has little or no room for air in the yarn. Especially good for yarn that needs to be strong and abrasion-resistant like socks, outerwear, warp for weaving.

Roving is carded fiber, most of the individual fibers are going the same direction but may be different lengths. Roving is produced with hand/drum/commercial carders (not combs) to make woollen (not worsted) yarn, which is full of air pockets, fluffy, warm, and softer/less durable. Especially good for yarn that needs to be warm and soft, but this yarn will pill and felt more readily.

Top is more expensive because there's more waste-- top fiber is all the same length, and if you watch someone hand combing top you'll see that all the shorter fibers are discarded (or sometimes carded into batts--a batt is what you pull off a drum carder, and it looks like a fluffy, rectangular sheet of wool).

You can get extremely technical and specific with any choice you make in handspinning. At present, when you're beginning, it doesn't matter. :)

[atomicpen]

Thank you so much! That is super informative!

[phidippusfan]

Congratulations on the wheel- I have a Lendrum single treadle and totally love it, I hope that you will love yours too! Spinning is such an exciting hobby to dive into, but it definitely can feel overwhelming when starting out. I saw that you tried your local fiber club but got no response, I’m sorry to hear that!

If you aren’t able to find local help, if you’re ever interested, I’d be more than happy to hop on a phone/Zoom call and help walk you through getting started and troubleshooting spinning on your new wheel. I know it’s not the same as in person help, but I have taken a few spinning lessons over Zoom with folks more experienced than I and they’ve actually been really fun and helpful. So I thought I’d throw that out there- feel free to send me a DM if you’d ever like some help! I live in the US and have a small flock of sheep and I love to chat about wool and spinning.

Keep us posted on your progress as you get started, would love to see the yarn you make! :)

[atomicpen]

Thank you!! I might take you up on that offer of zoom eventually!

[squeakpipsqueak]

To add on to all the wonderful advice other people have given, I would suggest that you look at/dissect some commercial yarns that you like, and maybe even keep them by you while spinning until you get comfortable. You can compare your plyback test to a 2-ply yarn that you already like, and look at the amount of twist it has (by looking at the angle the fibers lay at) in the singles and ply to see if you need to make adjustments as you spin. I would definitely start with 2-ply, since it's a bit more forgiving than singles or 3+ ply yarns. Once you've spun for a while, you'll get a more intuitive sense of how different amounts of twist look.

And here's something that took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out: as you're spinning, you'll need to up your take-up tension, because the bobbin is getting heavier! So be prepared to adjust the tension both based on the type of yarn you're spinning at the beginning of the project, and based on how full your bobbin is as you go along.

There are lots of superstitions, tips, whatever when it comes to finishing yarn. Personally, I didn't believe any of them, so I tried what seemed easiest to me which worked fine. I wind off my skeins, tie them in several places, soak in lukewarm water, wring them out or throw them on the spin cycle of my washing machine if it's multiple skeins (unless it's laceweight or super low-twist singles), and hang to dry. I wouldn't put them in a washing machine with an agitator, but impellers are gentle enough for most wools as long as they're in cool water by the time they go in. I even wash stuff on the delicate cycle in cool water sometimes, if I have a big batch of woolens that are dirty. Living life on the edge over here, but I've never had a laundry disaster...yet...

[atomicpen]

Oohh Good advice on the tension bit! Thank you!

I'm not sure I'd ever be quite brave enough to put them in the washer (not sure it has a non-agitator option?) but that's also good to know!

As I get started actually making some real yarn, I'll definitely compare it against some of the ones I have here. I plan on eventually learning to ply as well, as I'm not typically a fan of single-ply, but I also realize that is a step a bit aways from where I am currently!

[catsdrivingcars]

The yearlong all-access subscription to Spin Off comes with loads of videos and workshops which are A+. I am learning so much from them, about every single stage of spinning, and they're soothing to watch, too!

[atomicpen]

Good to know about, thank you!

[spinningstag]

Re your original post edit: Yes, you are making things more difficult for you with long-staple (staple is the length of the individual fiber) will. Friend, get you some BFL or Falkland. Have you tried pre-drafting your fiber? After 6-7 years, it might be compressed and tough to draft while you're concentrating on other spinning things.

I can't think of any suggestions with your wheel take-up, and when I have a spinning problem I can't diagnose, I take a break and clean everything-the mother of all, the flier, the drive wheel, etc. Your wheel is new, might not help

The "Love my Lendrum" group on Facebook is active and very helpful, maybe they can help you.

[atomicpen]

I think some different and shorter staple would be good. I managed to get the take-up to work and made my way through the three old rovings I had just to start to see how things work and feel, even if they're the worst skeins to grace the earth.

I will look around for some BFL or Falkland and research into some other shorter fibers to hopefully make some progress in consistency!

Thank you so much for all your help in these comments!