Have you caught the spinning bug yet? I had never considered learning how to spin my own yarn until I started working for Living Dreams Yarn. Seeing all of the fabulous yarns that our customers have spun with our products really inspired me to learn more about the spinning process and start teaching myself to spin.
No two spinning journeys are alike, so I reached out to the r/handspinning group on Reddit to research all the different ways people came to learn spinning, what fibers they like to spin best, and what advice they had for beginners. What follows is a selection of their answers! Responses have been edited for length/clarity.
1. Who taught you to spin? How did you learn?
- Taught myself to spin from YouTube videos. Still learning! It’s always an adventure.
- A friend of a friend had a wheel in her living room while we were there for our crafts club. I came by another time and she showed me the very basics, after that I watched ALL the tutorials I could find.
- I learned from my Great Grandmother in the early 60’s, on a great wheel.
- Silly enough, I first started spinning by plying weaving yarn on a handmade spindle to make it thicker for crochet.
- I learned to spin from YouTube videos. I started on a dropspindle and really liked it. Then went to a local spinners club to try spinning on a wheel. I bought my first wheel the same day.
- I technically first learned in the 4th or 5th grade from a woman who came to our school and taught my whole class to knit.
2. What is your favorite fiber to spin and why?
- I love to spin alpaca, I love how it slips easily through my fingers instead of being quite grippy like sheep fleece.
- I love merino and merino/silk blends. It seems to be the easiest for me to spin and it’s so soft and silky.
- BFL. It just feels so neat. It’s kinda sproingy.
- Lately, I have been enjoying cotton for the challenge and speed.
- I love spinning BFL, soft, wears well, dyes wonderfully and looks nice.
3. What advice would you give to beginner spinners?
- Be patient with yourself as it takes time to learn and develop muscle memory with this new skill.
- Yarn looks very different in a project than it does in the hank. There are no ugly yarns – only yarns that haven’t found the right project yet.
- Don’t get frustrated. Breaking the yarn is a great opportunity to learn how to join it again and understand better the mechanics
- Don’t be too concerned about consistency in the beginning. Just make a lot of yarn, no matter how “bad” you think it is, practice is the only thing that will make it better!
- Keep those first yarns you spin. You’ll be amazed one day soon, when you see how far you’ve come.
Are you ready to start your own spinning journey?
I may be biased, but I think that our beginner spinning kits are a great place to start! You get a skein of roving in the color of your choice, a handsome wooden drop spindle, and a printed set of instructions that include a QR code linked to a demonstration video.
Did you learn anything new from this article? Do you have anything to add? We would love to hear from you in the comments below. Also, please share your projects with us over in our Facebook Community Group. We love to see all the fabulous things our crafty family comes up with!