A Beginning Spinner's Questions

I received an e-mail from Melinda, a reader of the spider's blog, from Cleveland, Ohio. This was one of those pieces of correspondence that puts a big smile on my face...spinning questions!! The teacher in me (BA in Art Education and fiber arts instructor for lots of years) loves spinning/natural dyeing/knitting questions...If I don't know the answer, then chances are I know someone who will! I asked Melinda if I could answer her questions in a post, as it would benefit other spinners pondering the same things. She kindly wrote back:

Thanks so much for replying. Yes, please feel free to use my question. I enjoy and appreciate your blog; it's the only one on spinning techniques I've found. Knitting ones abound but spinners don't seem to have taken to blogs like the knitters. (Question from spider: Any readers out there know of other spinning technique blogs they would recommend? The more the merrier....)

Then, I e-mailed Melinda back and asked my typical gazillion questions in order to clarify things so that I could write the post. I wryly mentioned that perhaps she didn't know this onslaught of questioning by me was forthcoming. Melinda wrote:

Nope, I had no idea I was spawning "the beginner spinner in the wild" post. :)

Melinda's original e-mail was:

I'm a beginner wheel spinner (since last summer) and have a drafting question for you as I'm not sure if I'm doing this right. :) I'm making usable yarn but I spend most of my time drafting my roving before I even spin. I take my roving and keep splitting it in half over and over again until I have a fine amount, then pull lengthwise a bit and then spin. I add some spin but am not doing much drafting at the wheel besides getting out any lumps. If I don't do this I don't seem to have enough time to draft while spinning (it's merino.) Is this the norm? It's still largely thick and thin but is no longer overtwisted. I don't have any IRL spinners to watch. Thank you for any advice!

The commercially prepared merino fiber in purples and golds that Melinda is referring to is in the 4th photo from the top of the page. She bought it from handpaintedyarn.com. Melinda's resulting yarn that she spun is featured in the 5th photo from the top of the page. When I went to that site from which Melinda purchased the fiber, I took a peek at what they were selling and my eagle-spinning-eyes told me it looked like "top." Top, for you beginning spinners, is a commercial fiber preparation where in the last stage of prep is combing, thus removing all short and broken fibers and leaving only the long fibers which are parallel to each other. The site said the merino preparation they were selling was simply "roving." Was this incorrect labelling? Well, no...not exactly...but "roving" doesn't give the full picture for the fiber that Melinda spun. Also, it depends on what source you read for defining just what roving is. No wonder beginning spinners (and spinners beyond the beginning stages!) are confused...different sources which sell fibers and different authors/instructors which talk about fibers may all have different definitions of commonly used spinning terms and labels. Eek!

When I looked in a favorite resource of mine, the 2007 Woodland Woolworks mail-order catalog, I searched for how that company is defining "roving." They presently don't label any of the individual preps they sell with the word "roving" these days. Smart folks; the term "roving" is ripe with confusion. Instead, they give this coding for the fibers they sell: Carded fibers = Carded; Combed fibers=Top. Always wanting to inform their customers, in a separate box of written info, they did elaborate about carded fibers and just what they are. The info states that "Sliver (sly-ver) is an even, continuous strip of carded fibers without twist." There's an illustration of two hands stripping lengthwise some commercially prepared fibers, with the caption reading, "Thick rovings both carded and combed can be split lengthwise into two or more sections for better drafting control." BTW, this is the only mention of the word "roving" I could find in the whole of the catalog. There's also a separate box of info discussing the term, "top," basically saying they are fibers which are scoured and combed. In any case, beware that the labels that various companies/instructors/authors give to the preparation of fibers may NOT all jive...ask questions of the vendor that you're buying from, use your own accumulated knowledge, and send it or take it back if it's not what you thought it was.

Now, back to Melinda's situation where she was having a hard time spinning the labelled "roving," that I believe more accurately should be called combed "top." Let's face it spinners...top is harder for beginners to spin. Do check out my past post, Finishing Handspun Yarn - Part One, to see my embarrassing introduction to spinning top. Top presents more spinning difficulties if spun directly out of the package because of the smooth, parallel arrangement of the fibers and the fact that all the fibers are of the same length. Compounding the problem that occurs when these fibers are compactly packed in a bag for who-knows-how-long with who-knows-what kind of spinning oils on them, is the lack of airspace that surrounds these parallel fibers in the form of top. Carded fibers, on the other hand, have fibers of various lengths, NOT all sitting parallel to each other, but instead randomly arranged at angles to each other...air space abounds. Carded fibers are generally easier to spin for beginners, because the air space and the angled, shorter fibers allows for all of the fibers to more easily slip past each other. Not so with the combed top; the fibers tend to cling to each other, having nothing to push against (ie. no angled, shorter fibers and lack of air) as you try to draft them. To further explain my point see what Melinda wrote in other e-mails:

I have a Louet s15. I am spinning on the largest whorl. I am consciously trying to treadle slowly, but I don't really know anyone to compare my speed against. I feel like the fiber is just super sticky -- like I can't pull it apart enough at the wheel without the predrafting. I spun up a batt from Grafton Fibers (See 2nd photo from the bottom for a Grafton Fiber's batt on a chair and the resulting handspun Melinda spun and made into a headband, shown on Melinda in the bottom photo. The pattern for the headband is from Drops Design.) and had much better luck as it was already light and fluffy. However I have many pounds of Tunis (See bag of white, commercially carded fiber in the third photo from the top of the page. The grey, commercially carded fiber is also wool, but not Tunis) in roving form so the Grafton fiber will not be my normal medium. I'll be looking forward to reading your blog post for any further drafting advice (various types of drafting techniques are discussed on the past posts Drafting Techniques For Handspinners and Opinions On Drafting Techniques For Handspinners) I bought my Tunis fleece unprocessed at a fiber show last June. I paid $4 for 4.5 lbs. I sent it off to a processor (don't remember who but I wasn't impressed with their customer service anyway) and received it back a .5 lb lighter as roving. I've spun up a bunch and haven't even made a dent in it. (Note from spider: Most mills in the U.S. are carding mills, not combing mills, which is why, since Melinda sent her Tunis fleece away to be prepared into roving, I gathered that it's carded. Do any of the spider's readers know of U.S. or Canadian mills that also comb fibers that are sent to them, if the customer so chooses to have their fleece made into top?)

Grafton Fiber's batts, are of course, carded. I do believe that some or most of their batts are re-carded commercially prepared top, blending a variety of colors, thus the batts still have only the long fibers from the original top in that case. BUT, the extra carding process itself adds the factor of air, places the once parallel fibers at angles to each other, and that's why Melinda would find these batts easier to spin.

So now back to Melinda's question of how she's thus far combatted beginner's overtwist by lots of stripping (splitting lengthwise) and pre-drafting (getting the fibers to begin to slip past each other). She wondered if this was ok? I personally think anything's game if it helps you achieve the yarn your looking for. The fiber Melinda was referring to was the purple/gold top. By stripping and pre-drafting, you're physically adding air around the fibers, making them easier to slip past each other and therefore, easier to spin.

I also discussed with Melinda that she consider if her overtwist problems are not being caused by treadling so quickly her hands can't keep up with her feet and/or that the whorl she's on isn't so small that too much twist is getting inserted per each push on the treadle for the size of yarn she's making. General points to remember are: The larger the yarn, the less twist needed to make it stable. The smaller the yarn, the more twist needed to make it stable.

Also it's good to consider the average staple length of the fiber you're spinning. If you want to make a thick yarn or one with large slubs, the average staple length of the fiber has to be able to be held in the twist or it'll drift apart. Conversely, too much twist will turn a thick yarn into rope pronto. It's the spinner's task to find just the right amount of twist to make the yarn stable and yet not too much to make it overtwisted rope.

If you're looking for less of a thick 'n thin yarn, and want one that's more consistently smooth, then keep your eye on the drafting zone once you've established the size of yarn you want.
If you keep the fiber amounts in the drafting zone consistent (the unspun fiber that'll accept the twist next), then you'll have a more consistent yarn overall.

The photo at the top are some baby hats Melinda knitted from some 100% merino, commercially spun, yarn she bought on e-bay. The pattern is the "Umbilical Cord Hat," from Debbie Stoller's, "Stitch n' Bitch." Melinda says, "They are easy -- I can crank one out in 3 hours."

The second from the top photo shows a pretty fleece of dyed Jacob wool. Melinda wondered how she might prepare the fleece to spin. If Melinda carded it all together randomly, she'd most probably lose the various colors as they mixed with the brown. This would make for a livelier brown, but brown it would be. If Melinda removed the colors from the brown and carded them together randomly, she'd blend the various colors into one that was more homogenous. This may or may not be what was wanted. 'course she could also try to pick out individual colors and card each separately, but it looks like the fleece was rainbow dyed and the individual locks have more than one color on them. It's good to remember that when you card, you blend...thus she'd blend the colors together in this instance. I suggested that if she wanted to retain the colors, more or less, in the fleece, that she take some locks and ever so lightly tease them open. Once spun, this preparation will result in a more textured yarn than if the fibers were carded, but it would allow for the colors to remain quite clear and vivid. If the lock formation was still intact, she could also very light dog comb or use a dog rake to gently open the locks. After combing, the locks could be then spun from the fold or from the end. From the photo of the fleece, however, it looks as if much of the lock formation is lost and perhaps the light teasing would give her the clearer coloring in her yarn that she's looking for. Any other suggestions?

Finally, Melinda mentioned that she'd like to learn more about spinning a finer yarn than what she's been doing. In other words, she'd like to make singles so that when plied together she'll have useable worsted weight, or sport weight or whatever weight of yarn she'd choose to use in her knitting. I'll save this for next time... Thank you, Melinda, for asking excellent questions, thus bringing up some very important points for all of us spinners to contemplate, beginners and beyond.