Spinning Wool

This month I decided to put my yarn skillz to the test and try to spin my own wool! I keep hearing about the amazing wool spinners and dyers on my knitting Podcasts and getting jealous of their mad skillz so I thought it was time to try it myself. 

I went to The Alpaca Farm Boutique on Etsy and found myself a top whorl drop spindle and some alpaca fiber. I could have started with Wool but Alpaca is my most favorite fiber of them all!

I watched this YouTube video from WEBS to get started. This gal totally knows what she's doing, plus her name is Ashley, so I trust her. 

So far I have spun two tiny balls of Alpaca in the hopes of spinning them both together into a two ply tiny ball of yarn. Maintaining a consistent yarn size was actually much more difficult than I had imagined. I kept getting very slubby/thick and thin yarn. I don't intend to make novelty yarn so I'm going to have to work on my tension to get it consistent. I also think I might be over spinning my Roving, my finished yarn has been very tight and not soft. I'm wishing I had thought to take a class instead of attempting this challenge on my own! 

I have a few more ounces of yarn to spin and once I find out if my two balls of yarn can successfully become one tiny two ply yarn I'll be better able to judge my progress as a hand spinner. 

UPDATE!

I successfully wound my cute little yarn balls into a two ply yarn! It was actually a lot more fun than spinning the single ply. 

I'm sure I'm still over spinning as everything seems a little tighter than it should be but this is my first try and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out! 

I'm going to let it rest for a day or two and then block it. I know it's only a couple yards but I think I'll make myself a mug cozy with it or something small and cute. 

I need a lot more practice getting the yarn weight all the same size and figuring out the tension in my fiber spinning but I've got two more balls of Alpaca fiber to work my way through so I should be a pro by the time I'm done, right? 

Wish me luck!

Feel free to offer suggestions or advice if this is something you have experience with! I'm a super beginner so any tips are welcome! 

Thanks for stopping by!

​-Ashley