Spinning Yarn From Wool

I have been meaning to post this for the last 2 weeks but I have been a little busy. So let me tell you about my spinning class. I went to our local yarn store to take a class with a very nice and patient man, Will, who walked me through the spinning processes. I being a little ADD and OCD need to learn with someone walking me step by step. I found it to be pretty easy and fun. Above is the product of my class. I am going to butcher the terms but there are a lot more than I would ever have thought. I took the batting and using the drop spindle turned it into the very small ball of yarn that you see. This yarn is is not ready for use it needs to be treated so it will not unravel when you use it. I will, when I have time be spinning a much larger ball of yarn and finish it off so my lovely wife can knit with it. I really enjoyed myself and can see myself doing this and getting a lot better looking yarn. I will be posting a much more detailed blog with the whole processes. I would encourage anyone who is interested in doing this to find some You Tube videos to learn from. There are a lot to choose from. Watch a few different ones before trying it yourself. If you have a video yourself or find one that you like please post it in the comment section of this post so others and myself can learn from it. Take care and as soon as I can I will post a much longer and more detailed post on this topic. Thanks Jeff A.K.A. Photo Dude.

P.S. I had a thought to link to the yarn shop in our town and found their blog. All the people at this shop are so nice to deal with and they have some very cool classes and products. So check out their Blog here

Learning to Spin

     Yesterday was Photo Dude's birthday.  He gets the day off from work so we actually had a whole day to spend together just bumming around without the kids on a week day!  It was wonderful :)  Days like that are few and far between so we try to cherish the time we get when they do come along.  For his special birthday treat I made him cream puffs from scratch.  Oh dear they are soooo sinfully easy!  I found the recipe here at Tasty Kitchen.  At first I thought the puffs were too egg-y tasting but when I talked to my mom she just reminded me that I'm too used to the bland ones from the store.  These were very good and it only took one to get used to the fact they had flavor.
     But the name of this post is learning to spin isn't it?  Photo Dude and I are trying very hard to learn new things to make us more self sufficient (like many of you I'm sure).  I had told him of a drop spindle I had seen and thought he would be interested.  He spends a good portion of his work day twisting wires since he is an electrician.   We headed to Ewe to You yarn store in town to check it out.  We got a quick demonstration and Photo Dude decided that this is right up his alley.  He has a class scheduled for Friday night but you give a boy a new toy and he has to play.  We bought a $2 bunch of roving for him to destroy work with.   He found several YouTube videos to watch.  Ummmm I can't say that his first attempt was amazing but he got the general idea of it.  After the class Friday I think he will really get the ins and outs of how this works.  Now to convince him that we need Angora Rabbits for fiber!  That's going to be a little trickier.

 PS please ignore the mess, this is his desk area and unfortunately it gets neglected more times than not on cleaning day.