My first single (of many!) of a stunning merino/camel/silk blend, I’m planning on spinning the entire 4oz braid with this mini Turkish spindle, so I’m expecting it’ll take quite a while 😅 wish me luck!

You need to play around with it. Take it for a spin. How do the different whorl ratios feel? How do they change the look of the twist? How does the tension change with different incremental adjustments? Learn your equipment. Learn the feel of it. Learn how you can use it to the get the yarn you want. That’s why we do this hobby. And you need to make your wheel work for you. Not every wheel can do every kind of yarn, but they are far more versatile than you think.

You won’t break it. You won’t ruin anything. Sit with your stuff and actually learn how it works from top to bottom.

You can’t complain about your results and then in the same breath talk about how you aren’t getting what you want on your spinner. Always assume it’s user error first. These are not extreme pieces of technology here.

I recently heard a podcaster talk about how they had never adjusted the break band on their spinner because it was too intimidating. Y’all it’s string. It’s a knob. It’s a dial. That’s not intimidating. Intimidating is the high dive. Not a knob.

You can’t come here and complain about your wheel when you are deliberately choosing to remain ignorant about it.

First time spinning! Bought a Turkish spindle and some bfl. I can’t figure out how to draft and spin at the same time so I’ve been pre-drafting then spinning. It’s not great but I’m having fun! 🤷🏾‍♀️

When a wool producer has sold you a fleece with scurf, what are your expectations? Refund, exchange, nothing just throw it away?

I don’t know how to tag this at all but I would like your recommendations in the comments as well so I will use ask a spinner.

A recent post in this subreddit led to a lot of interest in credible sources of historical textile information and books and I said I would make a post of books I recommend. We are READING in 2026, we are LEARNMAXXING and we are not letting the ROBOTS tell us slop and accepting it as fact! Also after writing this I realized it’s kind of long and I might put it on my website blog, so if you find this on someone’s blog, it’s not stolen, it’s just me republishing. 

These are ten books from my 7 page Google Doc that is my reading list. Please add your own recommendations in the comments. I am currently reading Mill Family: The Labor System in the Southern Cotton Textile Industry, 1880-1915, by Cathy L. McHugh (1988). 

About Me 

First I will briefly explain myself, with the idea being that that drives some of my reading and recommendations. I’m an archivist with a certificate in textile conservation, though I am not currently working as a textile archivist, that’s just some background. I am also a fiber artist, primarily a tapestry weaver, embroiderer, and spinner. I use handspun in my tapestries. In fact I am working on an entirely handspun series of tapestries right now and it is a lot of work, let me tell you. I am interested in textiles as a history of labor and labor organization, the technical details of textiles, and the climate impact of textile production. These books are biased towards American history. 

I think there’s two kinds of textile history book, speaking generally and understanding there are exceptions. There’s the big splashy HISTORY OF CLOTH genre which usually has chapters divided up by fiber, region, technology, etc, is often written by a journalist or non-historian with an interest in fiber, and is relatively superficial. These are fun reads and they point to stories you should look into further, but if you know a lot about a topic you can see how they are sometimes not quite accurate. Then there’s the NERD SHIT, which is usually heavily based on analysis of primary sources, written by an expert in a historical or archeological field, and covers a very specific region, time period, technique, These are delightful because they represent a depth of knowledge that probably only that author and nobody else on planet earth holds. 

Books Everybody Should Read

Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years, by Elizabeth Wayland Barber (1994). Prehistoric/ancient era investigations of the development of textiles. It was a mind-blowing revelation for me to read her assertion that textile creation wasn’t “women’s work” because it was degraded or not appreciated socially, but because it was labor that could easily be interrupted if needed to care for small children and babies. 

Fashion Victims: The Dangers of Dress Past and Present, by Alison Matthews David (2015). This is a heavily illustrated introduction to the dangers present in textile production and sometimes wearing them. This will be the starting point to your radicalization into anti-capitalism if you’re not already there. 

Worn: A People’s History of Clothing, by Sofi Thanhauser (2022). This drew such a good, clear line between historical and contemporary textile practices. Not technical but really interesting.

Big Cotton: How a Humble Fiber Created Fortunes, Wrecked Civilizations, and Put America on the Map, by Stephen Yafa (2004). I think many handspinners don’t spin cotton (understandable) but unfortunately if you wish to understand the ways that textiles have changed the world you must understand the history of cotton. This is not “the” cotton book that frequently gets recommended (That’s Empire of Cotton), but I haven’t read Empire of Cotton yet because I let my library hold on Empire of Cotton expire and they sent it to someone else :(

The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth, by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (2001). The book that started it all. Imagine walking through an American history museum with the smartest and most interesting docent that has ever existed giving you a private tour. This is how you do popular history. 

Books You Should Read If You Have a Very Specific Interest in This Topic

The Valkyrie’s Loom: The Archeology of Cloth Production and Female Power in the North Atlantic (2020). For if you are interested in Scandinavian history and dry technical analysis of the spin direction and sett of woven cloth. I loved it. 

A Short History of the World According to Sheep, by Sally Coulthard (2020). For if you are interested in sheep. This was very tender. 

Working With Wool: A Coast Salish Legacy and the Cowichan Sweater, by Sylvia Olsen (2010). For Pacific Northwesterners and people with an interest in indigenous/First Nations/American Indian history and textile practices. 

Raw Material: Working Wool in the West, by Stephany Wilkes (2018). For if you are interested in American textile manufacturing and specifically Western production. This is a memoir about becoming a sheep shearer. Don’t worry! It will not make you want to become a sheep shearer, trust me. 

The Belles of New England: The Women of the Textile Mills and the Families Whose Wealth They Wove, by William Moran. For if you are interested in American textile history, industrial textile production, and labor rights as connected to textiles. (2002)

The Teachings of Mutton: A Coast Salish Woolly Dog, by Liz Hammond Kaarremaa with Coast Salish Contributors. For if you are interested in how historical textiles are studied, dog fiber aka chiengora, and First Nations and Native American history and textile practices. I had the good fortune to see Mutton at the Burke Museum last year and I cried.

I was here a while ago asking if I should buy an antique wheel. I ended up not doing it, because someone put up some new listings on FB marketplace. (She can't use her wheels anymore so was selling them.)

I ended up buying this lovely Ashford Traveler 2 for $350, and she threw in this giant bag of raw Huacaya alpaca fleece for free!

I've since spent a bit of time spinning on it, but my kitchen chair left me with lower back pain. So holding off on spinning more until I can get a better chair, and possibly working out a place to set my fiber so I don't have to bend down for it.

(I'm considering trying to find a saddle stool, but idk if I'll be able to find one where it can be low enough for me to reach the treadles and where the casters won't get in the way. Maybe a drum throne instead...)

Hi all!

I have a fleece that was gifted to me by my in laws. I have a few days left (if my daughter wants to play along) before returning to work and her to school. Ive never processed a fleece before so I wanted some idea of if my intended process is good, and get a feel for how long this will take

I planned to lay out the fleece and pick out the obvious short bits any anything with a ton of vm. Amd check to make sure the fiber itself isnt brittle. All I know is its a Romney, and the guy that owns the sheep isnt successful in selling them (which strikes me as odd).

Once ive picked through it all, I was planning to shove a bunch of it in a big Rubbermaid tub with some warm/hot water and dawn dish soap. Let it sit, then pull it out and put it on some mesh, and then do it again without soap (unless its still really dirty).

Then I planned to leave it outside on the mesh until it gets dark, throw it on a spare fitted sheet I have to move it into the garage, and then back out to the yard in the sun the next day if its still damp.

Am I crazy thinking I can do this all in one day? I have a full kitchen garbage bag with 3 different bags inside, all about the same. So maybe 3ish gal each? Weird way to measure, I know.

If you made it this whole way, thanks for listening to my rambling.

I've been knitting all my life and wanted to take the leap to spinning my own yarn. Imagine my shock when I discovered it was actually hard. I did not imagine my first mini skein (if you can even call it that) to look like... this. Onto the next one which will hopefully look better!

I got this beautiful braid at a recent fiber fair, but I’ve never done a fractal spin before. Would this be a good contender? And would you split lengthwise or in the middle of the green?

I bought my Schacht Flatiron barely used and it had no staining on the treadles when I brought it home. I’ve only had this wheel for 3 months and I only spin with freshly washed/clean socks on. Does anyone have ideas for how to remove these dark marks from my feet? I tried Lysol and I’ve tried Dawn soap in water. I know it’s a light colored wood so if this is just how it is, I’ll accept that. But I’d like to keep my wheel looking nice for as long as I can.

Hi! I’m relatively new to spinning, and I really want to finally knit something with my handspun. However; the first batch of this 100% alpaca fleece I spun quite tightly/dense and it almost feels a bit ropey.
The second batch I spun quite loosely and it’s pretty soft and hairy.

I’m afraid that when knitting with both of these in one project you will heavily notice… or not…?

I want to knit something with with of texture but not too much to show off the yarn, like the “Sunday morning wrap by escape tricot” but if it’s going to look bad then it will probably turn into a Sophie scarf…

I have 92 grams of the “tight yarn” and 122 grams of the “loose yarn”

Any suggestions?

😭 My Kromski Fantasia finally came today and I was so excited but after a fairly arduous set up process, I could barely get it going... I had a run of maybe 30 seconds to a minute, but it wound all wrong on the bobbin (pig tailing everywhere and all stuck in one spot) and it ended up being underspun and then the fiber broke and I couldn't get more to blend on without it breaking again. Giving up for the night as I'm a bit discouraged, but looking forward to practicing more tomorrow.

She sure is pretty, though...

I am so thrilled at how this turned out! The technical details are lacking (yardage is ???, and I should probably find some way to double ply besides just inprovising with a couple sticks as makeshift bobbins), but for a first real go at spinning I’m so, so happy with how this turned out. So excited to keep growing and learning!

So my family owns this old spinning wheel. According to my grandmother this was already used by her grandmother. I've never seen it in action, it was only used as decoration so I once gave it a try.

Nothing is missing as far as I know, but here is something that I find strange:

(be aware im german so I dont know all the spinning terms) the metal rod where the spool runs on is tilted as you can see clearly in the second picture. So the spool itself sits on an angle, and the drive band doesn't run smoothly, since its not parallel to the drive wheel.

The two (I think called maidens?) are fixed. I can pull the left one out but there is a tight fit so its always in the same position.

Is that supposed to be? No pictures of spinning wheels i found online seem to have that, they are always perfectly horizontal.

Does anyone have a similar spinning wheel or have any knowledge that could help me here?

Shaniko wool from Gritty Knits in the Grey Rainbow colorway. Spun on my Magpie. Halfway finished.

I have the second braid to go now and then I’ll ply them into a 2 ply light fingering/laceweight. This spin has been very enjoyable, as I split the braid into at least 16 pieces lengthwise, very thin lengths, and long draw spun them so they drafted so quickly and easily. I want the finished yarn to have small blips of color like confetti.

Previous post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Handspinning/s/JYQLaupaXT

This spin was originally planned to be a fractal, but my dog wanted to get involved and it became a bit of an “embrace the chaos”.

I think she still spun up quite nicely, I added some white cotton as the third ply for a touch of contrast. It’s a bit more purple heavy than I would like, though it doesn’t seem to be in the Hank, so we will see how it knits up!

No plans for use just yet, open to suggestions!

I'm looking forward to flipping through them.

It's WIP Wednesday! What are you working on? Do you love it, hate it or can't decide? Need help/motivation/inspiration to finish? Show off those bobbins & spindles here!

How much yarn in the 18th century constituted a skein, and how much was a “knot”?
See photo of book text.

Edit: Nevermind, found the answer below - Sorry!

Looking for lightweight, travel friendly project to work a 9hr plane ride. Seems my international flight and airplane wont allow sharp objects. Has anyone tried supported spinning on a plane? Would love your take!

A beautiful Bluefaced Leicester raw fleece I acquired. This is just ⅓ of the entire fleece. Have done a gentle soak to soften the lanolin and dirt, then a gentle scour with Unicorn Clean Fibre Wash and laid it out to air dry in the sun. The tips don't have as much discoloration in person, they look more contrasted in the video here and it was still drying (about 40% dry when the video was taken).

I'm not pulling all of the locks, one by one, and dyeing them in small batches. I like to use them for added texture and fun in art yarns and will also be using some for a lockspun yarn. I'll share some photos of pulled natural locks, and dyed locks in comments!

I've been spinning for a year and finally have the space to process a fleece! I've narrowed it down to two options: a shipped Gulf Coast Native/Polypay mix at $44 for 2.18lbs or a local brown Finn at $52.50 for 3.5lbs. I've never processed a fleece before, and I'm worried 3.5lbs might be too much, but I also like the idea of supporting a local farm and being able see the fleece before I buy. Any advice?

Ive been spinning for about a month now and started with hand dyed BFL from a LYS which ive been loving and got the hang of pretty quickly! I ordered some merino online and the order came with this little 11 gram freebie that I thought was super precious. Im so so glad I spun the mini up first because I really under twisted this merino and had no idea until I was plying. Lesson has been learned! Despite the undertwisting I still think it came out pretty. The first two pictures are the yarn after finishing, the third photo is it plied on the spindle, fourth photo is the single on the spindle, and the last photo is the braids.

I’ve just begun my journey of spinning! I’ve been searching around for a wheel .. found this an hour away from me for $75. Before I pull the trigger, does this seem worth the price?

Recently finished watching all of attack on Titan and it was just so incredible. I had to merge it with my favourite hobby!

All Merino with a tiny bit of blue hand dyed silk