Spinning

About 2 years ago my aunt gave me some fleeces, last summer my dad washed it and we carded it with carders I picked up on holiday in Sweden (if you're ever in Sweden you really should visit Scansen). I learned how to spin with a drop spindle recently from Chicwithstix and brought it with me to Galway with the intention of trying some of it. I also brought some longer staple yarn to see if I could get one of the spinning wheels operating in the house. There's about 4 or so of them, built by my dad, my brothers and some of dad's students (who didn't want them at the end of the year), built for a variety of leaving certs and curiousity by my dad to reproduce some wheels that caught his interest. They have never really been used and I failed to get the first one to work this weekend.

Still I did get some of the shorter staple yarn from my aunt spun, and plied!


It led to a near blister and it's not perfect, but for a beginner it wasn't bad. More practice when I go back again.

My little brother has a bag of my longer staple Leicester to play with, as he is determined to make the spinning wheel work and he has some time on his hands.