How to Spin Wool Fiber

Spinning wheel

Spinning wool fiber on a spinning wheel requires coordination as both hands and feet need to move independently of each other. Spinning involves twisting fiber in various thicknesses to create yarn. With practice, spinning on a wheel becomes comfortable and a calm activity that may relieve stress.

Things You'll Need

• Spinning wheel
• Multiple spindles
• Carded wool or roving
• Lazy Kate

Instructions

Spinning With a Wheel

1. Take the carded wool or roving and fluff it to create an area to attach to the leader. The leader is the yarn section that is attached to the spindle on the spinning wheel. The leader starts the spinning process by pulling the roving into the spinning wheel. Lay the leader onto the roving and hold with your thumb and pointer finger on the right hand. The left hand holds the roving.

2. Peddle the treadle so the wheel moves in a clockwise direction. The leader strand grabs fibers from the wool and starts the spinning process. Peddle until the wheel has made several rounds and the spin has built up in the leader strand.

3. Hold the leader strand at the point it meets the wool by pinching with your fingers to control the amount of spin released into the wool roving. Begin to draft the wool fibers out, creating spun yarn. Drafting involves pulling a small amount of fibers out of the roving and letting them twist into spun yarn. The front hand, usually the right hand, controls the spin while the back hand controls the amount of wool released from the roving.

4. 

   Control the thickness of yarn by regulating the amount of wool fibers released into the draft zone. The draft zone is the triangle area that starts at the point where the fibers are spun into yarn to the wider area of the roving. The amount of wool released with each draft into the zone creates the yarn thickness. One strand of yarn is a single-ply yarn.

5. 

   Continue to spin the wool roving until the spindle on the spinning wheel is full. To create a multiple-ply yarn, fill the number of spindles that corresponds to the number of plies wanted. A two-ply yarn needs two spindles of spun yarn. Place full spindles on a Lazy Kate in order to ply the yarn.

6. To make a two-ply yarn, put an empty spindle on the spinning wheel. Pull the two strands of single-ply spun yarn through the spinning wheel and tie to the spindle. Peddle the spinning wheel treadle counter-clockwise to pull and spin the two-ply yarn through the wheel and onto the spindle. Continue twisting the two-ply yarn until the spindle is full. Repeat this process until all single-ply yarn has been twisted into a double-ply yarn.

References

• How to Spin Wool Fiber
• Basic Hand-spinning Techniques