Wool Crafts: Hand-Spinning for Absolute Beginners

There is something quietly addictive about turning a greasy, slightly smelly fleece into a skein of yarn you can actually use. It is slow work, it is a bit mucky, and your first attempts will be lumpy. That is entirely the point. Hand-spun yarn made on a simple drop spindle has a character no mill can replicate, and the whole enterprise can be set up for the price of a decent pair of secateurs.

Why Spin Your Own?

Most smallholders end up with access to wool long before they have a use for it. A neighbour's small flock, a rare breed keeper down the lane, or the odd fleece left at the gate after shearing — wool is often free or nearly so, and the awkward, matted, coloured fleeces that commercial buyers reject are frequently the most interesting to spin.

Spinning at home gives you:

• Control over thickness, twist and colour, so you can make exactly the yarn a project needs
• A genuine use for fleece that would otherwise be composted or burned
• A cheap, portable craft — a drop spindle fits in a coat pocket
• A satisfying winter evening occupation that pairs well with a woodburner and a mug of tea

You do not need a wheel to begin. In fact, a spindle teaches you to feel the fibre properly, and many spinners never bother with anything else.

Choosing and Preparing a Fleece

Ask for a whole fleece from a named breed if you can. Medium wools such as Romney, Shetland, Bluefaced Leicester, Ryeland and Jacob are forgiving for beginners; soft fine wools like Merino are slippery and frustrating until you have some skill. Jacob is especially good because the fleece comes in distinct patches of white, black and grey, so you can sort colours as you go.

Once you have your fleece, lay it out on a sheet and skirt it. This means pulling away the daggy, dung-stained edges, the short neck wool, and any felted or matted lumps. Throw those on the compost. What remains is the good stuff — typically two to four kilograms from a full fleece.

Next, wash it. Fill a deep tub or a couple of buckets with water as hot as your hands can stand, add a good squirt of washing-up liquid, and lower in handfuls of fleece. Do not agitate it. Leave it for twenty minutes, then lift the wool out — never pour the water off through the wool — and repeat with fresh hot water until the water stays reasonably clear. Two or three washes is usually enough. Rinse once in water of the same temperature, then spread the fleece on a rack or an old clothes horse to dry somewhere airy. It will smell faintly of sheep for a while, which is no bad thing.

You can spin unwashed fleece "in the grease", and some people swear by it, but clean wool is kinder to your hands and your spindle.

Getting to Grips with a Drop Spindle

A top-whorl drop spindle weighing 50–80g is the sensible starting point, along with a pair of hand cards. You will also want a niddy noddy for making skeins, but a chair back works at a push.

Before spinning, pre-draft your fibre. Take a handful of washed fleece, tease it open with your fingers, and pull it gently into a loose, pencil-width strip. This is the single biggest favour you can do for yourself. Most beginner frustration comes from trying to draft fibre that was never opened up in the first place.

Tie a leader yarn to the spindle shaft, hook it over the whorl, and you are ready. The rhythm is simple, though it takes an hour or two to feel natural:

• Pinch the fibre with your front hand and let the spindle hang and twist
• Slide your front hand back, allowing the twist to run up into the drafted fibre
• Let the yarn wind onto the shaft, then repeat

Park-and-draft is the easiest method to learn: spin a length, park the spindle between your knees, draft more fibre, then let it wind on. Aim for consistency rather than fineness. Thick, even yarn is far more useful than thin, lumpy yarn.

Plying, Finishing and Using Your Yarn

Single yarn has a lot of twist and will skew a knitted fabric badly, so ply it. Wind your singles into a ball, then ply two strands together in the opposite direction to which you spun them. If you spun anticlockwise, ply clockwise. The yarn should look round and balanced, and should not kink back on itself when you hold it loosely.

To finish, wind the yarn into a skein and soak it in warm water for twenty minutes. Squeeze it gently, snap it sharply between your hands a few times to settle the fibres, then hang it to dry with a light weight — a wooden spoon through the loop is plenty — so the twist sets.

Rustic hand-spun is at its best in simple, sturdy things:

• Chunky hats, mittens and slippers
• Peg-loom and rag rugs where uneven thickness simply adds texture
• Woven blankets, scarves and cushion covers
• Thick winter socks, best worn inside boots

Keep your earliest skeins as they are. Label them with the date and the fleece they came from, and in a year's time you will be able to see just how far your hands have come.