This is the next step in the hat I’m making for the member of our family who is going through chemo treatments and has lost his hair.
Step 3 is to spin the fiber I carded in Step 2. But first, I need to empty two bobbins.
2 empty bobbins
I wound the yarn from 2 bobbins into balls to be used later. Now I have the bobbins I will need to spin the black fiber into singles.
Divided in half
I use my scale to divide the fiber into 2 equal amounts. Each bag of fiber will be spun onto a bobbin as a single-ply yarn. My goal is have the same yardage of yarn on each bobbin. That will require me to spin the same thickness of yarn on each bobbin.
Ready to go
Yes, those are my bright magenta knees before my spinning wheel. I wear a pair of very slick nylon jogging pants when spinning fine alpaca fiber from batts. The fiber does not stick to the slick fabric, which helps the spinning process.
Fiber bits
Each bag of fiber is a bit over 3 ounces and took about 3 hours to spin. After completing the first bag, I had a bunch of tiny second cuts which I pulled from the fiber as I was spinning.
Bobbins complete
After a second spinning session, I had spun all the fiber onto these 2 bobbins.
Step 4 will be to ply the singles and set the twist.
The bobbins having different size drive whorls (what is that part called??) didn’t cause you headaches? I would guess the smaller bobbin and smaller whorl will want to go faster. My two spinning wheels have the different size whorls fixed to the wheel so all of the bobbins are interchangeable.
I did think of that while spinning the second bobbin, but I didn’t notice any difference. I thought maybe I should have put the band on the second slot in the larger bobbin, but didn’t try it. I’ll have to try an experiment!