Next in our journey around the spinning world is Mongolia. I found this wonderful clip of a woman singing and plying in a Mongolian yurt.
The spindle and the technique looks similar to the ones in Nepal I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. The spindle is quite long with a top whorl and she starts the spinning by rolling it against her thigh. She looks quite happy and, frankly, so would I, spinning in the coziness of a yurt.
ETA February 19th 2020: A follower contacted me today and told me that the lady is Kazakh. She is singing in Kazakh and the decorations in the yurt are typically Kazakh. Her dress is also more Kazakh than Mongolian.
First of all: Happy St Distaff’s day! I’m celebrating with some distaff spinning of my own and watching spinning videos.
I found a couple of inspiring clips of some beautiful and very old distaff spinning technique in Ecuador. The spindle is held almost horizontally in the outer end and the thread goes over the spindle tip closest to the distaff. In the first video the spinner is using wool and has a belt distaff.
In the second video the spinner is using cotton and a separate floor distaff. She is also rolling the yarn onto a temporary cop, just like I do when I spin supported. Now and then she dips her spinning hand in what looks like water, perhaps to get a better grip on the spindle.
I found a few videos of people spinning in Nepal. First off is a woman spinning suspended on a bottom whorl spindle. I think there is a notch at the top of the shaft. She spins wool from a ball of what I think is pre-drafted roving. She pulls out a length first and butterflies it on her spinning hand and starts the spindle between the palm of her hands.
In the second video two women are spinning on similar spindles with the same technique and the balls of roving attached to their belts. They also lead the thread over the top of their heads. As a bonus, the third woman is carrying her child in a sling on her back, something that brings back sweet memories from when we carried our youngest in all sorts of slings.
In the third video, a man is spinning on a spindle that looks the same as in the first two videos. He has arranged his roving (yak?) around his wrist and spins in-hand style.
Eventhough all the spinners are standing, the videos show spinning arranged for mobility. The tools and techniques are adapted to a moving life. Staying in the same place doesn’t seem to be relevant.
In a fourth video, a man is spinning nettle with an in-hand spinning style. The spindle looks completely different from the three above. The strick of hemp is arranged somehow, either on a distaff or over the spinner’s shoulder, it is hard to tell from the video.
This lady in northern India is spinning on a support spindle. However, she doesn’t have the time to just sit and spin, so she has arranged a spoon-like tool to act as a bowl, fastened in her apron. This way she can spin while she is walking. The man interviewing her says she is spinning wool, but it does look more like cotton to me.
I was really inspired when I saw this video and a little over a year ago I tried to do the same. I shot a silly little video with support spinning with a spoon while walking. Enjoy!
A while ago I came across the term English long draw. I saw a video by Longdrawjames where he showed and explained the English long draw and the importance of good carding. With this technique you build up the twist in an unspun piece of rolag while pinching the yarn with your spinning hand, pull the rolag back and unpinch the spinning hand, build up twist and then the yarn roll onto the bobbin in one smooth motion. Ruth McGregor has made a beautiful and relaxing video where it all looks really easy. She also shows how to hand card. Amanda Hannaford of mandacraft also made a great videos that shows and explains the technique.
As with all spinning, the preparation is crucial. You need to be able to make even rolags with your hand carders. If you leave uneven parts in the rolags, the spinning will be more difficult and the yarn will be equally uneven. And with uneven yarn, the twist will be uneven, making it more difficult to ply and risking lots of unintentional pigtails in the thinnest sections.
I have spun with this technique for a while now, but rather on a Navajo spindle than on a spinning wheel. If you look closely at Navajo spinning (at least the way I do it), you can see that it is the same technique. In this video I show the technique, especially in the slow motion section. I do tend to build up my twist in slightly bigger chunks of the rolag. Then I add twist in arm length sections, but otherwise it is practically the same.
A few days ago I decided to finally try it on my spinning wheel. It was a bit tricky at first, but after a while I got the hang of it!
I have not made a video about this. Yet. I need to practice a bit more first and wait for the spring so that I can shoot the video outside. And I will use white wool. In the meantime, look at the videos I mentioned and repeat this mantra:
Build up the twist in a few inches of rolag
Draw out the fiber hand until your reach your desired yarn thickness
Add more twist for a stronger yarn
Let the yarn roll onto the bobbin in one smooth motion
And Voilá! A yarn is spun!
In my experience, the English long draw leaves a more even yarn than with what to me is a traditional long draw (or does it have another name in comparison to the English?). The draw is longer and you have more control of the process. I also believe that I can get a more controlled rhythm with the English long draw.
Happy spinning!
A 3-ply sport weight yarn spun with English long draw from hand-carded rolags. The wool is combing leftovers from Shetland sheep (Eskit).
A short clip of a Romanian woman spinning with a spindle stick and distaff. She is holding the spindle stick horizontally and spins it into a bulky and low-twist yarn by tossing and turning the spindle in her hand. She has arranged the fiber beautifully on the distaff, there must be over 200 grams of wool on it!
Norman Kennedy also demonstrates this technique in his video From wool to walking: Spinning wool and creating cloth with Norman Kennedy (preview of the video), available on Interweave.
Since I’m not making any new videos this time of year, I thought I’d invite you to see other videos that I like, that feature spinners and spinning techniques around the globe.
First up is a video I’m sure many of you have seen already, but it is so beautiful and inspirational when it comes to Navajo spindle spinning. I am talking about Clara Sherman and her wonderful treatment of spindle, wool and spinning. The way she trusts her body to feel when the twist is just right is so liberating. But not only does she trust her body to feel how the wool wants to be spun, she can also verbalize it and explain it to the viewer. That’s skill and knowledge on a deep level. She has a true respect for the wool and animates it when she talks about the wool crying.
The video features all the parts of the process from sheep to the finished rug, and it emphasizes the importance of thoughtful and thorough preparation to make a high quality all the way to the end product.
Clara Sherman died a few years ago, at the age of 96. I’m so happy that someone filmed her and made some of her talent available on YouTube so that we have the opportunity to learn from her.
I just had a moment, a realisation. A moment to cherish and save in my treasure bank like a piece of beautifully wrapped candy.
You know when you make something and it doesn’t feel right, and then you make a subtle change and suddenly everything falls into place. In spinning it can be about the length of the draft, the rhythm of the treadling or the amount of fiber drafted.
This just happened. I’m spinning a Shetland fleece I bought this summer. It is very soft and crimpy and has a very long staple. I have realized that there is a bit too much lanolin left in it, it doesn’t flow right. I have made adaptations so that the combing flows easier, but the spinning wasn’t the way I wanted it to be and it bothered me. The flow wasn’t really there and the fiber told me so: “It isn’t wrong, but it definitely isn’t right either”. Until I made that liberating change that made such a difference. It wasn’t much, just a lighter hold with my spinning hand. And suddenly there was flow. It was as though the fiber said to me “yeah, you’ve got it now!”. I had found the key to how the fiber wanted to be spun.
The beauty of this is, that the process of spinning itself allows you to really contemplate and reflect over this while you are spinning, which makes the experience even more powerful. I feel like I have had a shot of vitamin Spin.
Last autumn, when I made a video at Överjärva gård, I happened to buy another fleece. I didn’t mean to, but I saw it in the wool shop and I immediately realized that it needed me. It was half a fleece from the Swedish finewool sheep Engla.
Engla, a newly shorn fleece
When I sorted the fleece, I decided to divide it into different piles according to the quality of the wool. I ended up with three piles – the very short and fine (neck) staples, the medium length staples and the longer staples.
The shortest staples were carded
The fleece was a joy to work with – it was clean, easy to sort, wonderful to comb and card and dreamy to spin. I do love Swedish finewool. I can honestly say it has been one of my very favourite fleeces.
Medium staples with lots of crimp
I bought 800 g of fleece and ended up with a total of about 440 g of yarn.
The longest staples were combed
So, I carded the fine neck staples and spun them with long draw on a supported spindle and made a 3-ply yarn out of the singles and I was very happy with the result. A light, airy and even yarn with lots of bounce. I also made a video about the plying.
3-ply yarn carded and spun with long draw on a supported spindle. 57 g, 203 m, 3581 m/kg
I carded the medium staples as well and spun them with long draw on a Navajo spindle. One of the yarns I made was a prize winner – The sheep, the chicken, the pig and the lion. I also spun several skeins of singles on a Navajo spindle.
Thick singles spun with long draw on a Navajo spindle, and will probably be used as weft yarn. 434 m, 212 g with an average of 2000 m/kg.
I combed the longest staples and spun them with short draw on a supported spindle. I experimented with chain-plying “on the fly” and made two videos about it, a detailed video about how to ply-on-the-fly on a supported spindle and another one where I show how I start from an empty spindle with the ply-on-the-fly method.
Medium length staples combed and plied on the fly on a supported spindle.
I feel very fortunate as a hand spinner to be able to sort my fleeces to make different kinds of yarns, whether it is according to colour, structure or length. It can result in really unique yarns. And I learn so much from it.
A couple of weeks ago I published a video on how to ply on the fly on a supported spindle. I am pleased about how it came out and it was very well received. But there was one thing missing with it, and two viewers were kind enough to point that out for me: I hadn’t shown how to start. And there is a reason fort that: I didn’t know how to, which was very unprofessional of me. I had searched youtube for a video on the technique and found Ioana’s video, but she doesn’t explain that either. So, when I recorded the video I just made an unorganized start and hoped it would be tight enough. I definitely did not put that part in the video.
The problem with two directions
After a few days of analyzing and experimenting I have now come to the conclusion that the easiest and most straightforward way to start to ply on the fly on a supported spindle is to use a leader. I usually don’t use a leader when spinning on a spindle because I want the spinning as “clean” as possible. However, in this case I find it justifiable. When plying on the fly you are working with both singles and plied yarn. This means that there are sections with fiber spun clockwise and counter-clockwise in the same stretch of yarn. Also, the sections are wound onto the shaft in different directions. So, at the loop, the yarn of different directions wound in different directions meet, which makes the point of the loop a critical one and the loop needs to be properly secured at the loop itself (onto he tip) and at the two yarn ends below (by winding the yarn tightly around the ends). And because of this point being so critical, I choose to use a leader that won’t break when changing directions of the spinning and winding on.
My solution
So, I make a quite long leader, make a slip knot at the middle of the leader and tie one end of leader onto the shaft just above the whorl. I wind the leader counter-clockwise around the shaft until I get to the loop. I secure the loop onto the bottom tip of the shaft. After that I secure both leader ends onto the shaft again, now winding the yarn clockwise, just as I have shown in the first video. After that, I spiral the leader up the shaft, clockwise and start spinning! The video is about 3,5 minutes, but only the first minute shows how I start.
Edit: I just discovered a mistake in the video. At 1:41 text should read: “Transfer slip knot to *index finger* of spinning hand”.
