Twin Willows Farm - Spinning
Thick Yarn
Suzie
Spinner, as raw beginner, worried about the thick-and-thin yarn
she produced in her first efforts. She strived for
“perfection” and worked to produce a fine, even single. Hours
of practice paid off and
the smooth, fine, even single looks great! However, since
Suzie only
practiced to achieve this goal, it is the only type of yarn that she
can
produce.
Does this sound familiar? Do you have to ply three or four
singles to get a thicker yarn? If so, you may want to
re-learn to spin thick again. What does it take to spin a
thicker single?
Most of us when learning to spin practiced to be able to work our hands
as fast as we worked our feet. In other words, we’ve become
speed demons! High speed spinning produced fine
yarn. The first step to spinning
thicker is to slow down. The easiest way to do this is to set
your
wheel to a slower ratio. Most wheels have at least three
ratio choices
on the flyer unit. Choose the largest of these to slow down
the wheel. Many wheels also have several choices on the wheel
itself. Choose
the smallest groove on the wheel. This will slow your
spinning down
without having to change your comfortable treadling speed.
The easiest method to help spin thicker yarn is to pre-draft your
fibers to the amount you wish to have in the drafting zone.
For example,
you may want to draft out the fibers to the thickness of your
thumb.
When spinning these pre-drafted fibers, you let them slip smoothly
between
your fingers as the twist takes them up, not drafting them any
more.
This will produce a thicker, consistent yarn. You control the
thickness of the yarn by the thickness of the pre-drafting.
Tearing strips from batts or rovings can achieve the same results but
it is a little harder
to control the size of a torn strip.
The basic ingredient to spinning thick yarns is to allow more fibers
into the drafting zone before the twist grabs it up. Slowing
down,
pre-drafting and working with a short
draw all help this happen. So give it a try and
break out of the “thin” rut!
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articles are copyright protected and may not be copied for any use
without the author's written permission.
Contact Pegg
Thomas at twinwillowsfarm@gmail.com.
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Twin
Willows Farm
