For me, spinning is a meditative process. The creek of the wheel turning, the feel of fiber slipping through my fingers; the rest of the world has a way of disappearing and I'm left with this amazing feeling of creating something special and unique. Spinning fiber into yarn can be a very organic process, and I often have the most fun when I just go for it and let the yarn happen without over-thinking it. One of my favorite ways to spin yarn is to have several types of fiber in a large variety of colors in baskets beside me, and I can then grab handfuls of fiber randomly. It's no secret that I love chunky, funky yarn because it's something that you really can't buy commercially.

Still, there are times when spinning techniques are important to understand. I've always believed that it's OK to break certain creative rules, but you need to know the rules before you should break them. So that's where this blog comes in: I'd like to talk about a few of the more interesting spinning techniques, and why I think they are awesome!

Cabled yarn is absolutely gorgeous, and it's very similar in appearance to a traditional round braid used in bracelet making and macrame. Although it looks intimidating, it's actually a fairly simple technique with endless possibilities.

Quick Overview/summary: Cabled yarn is created when you ply two 2-ply yarns together. Additionally, cables can be doubled as many times as you want to create some incredible looking yarns!

1. Begin with 2 single spun yarns of the same thickness. 
2. Ply the two singles together in the opposite direction (so if you spun your singles to the right {z-twist}, ply them together to the left {s-twist}).
3. You now have a 2-ply yarn.
   
4. Repeat steps 1 and 2 so that you have two 2-ply yarns to work with.
5. Important: In order to cable the yarns so it has the desired look, you need to have twice as much twist in your plied yarn as you'd normally want. In other words, you want it to be over-plied. The easiest way to do it (thank you to Judith MacKenzie for this) so that you have even results is to run your 2-plied yarn back through once more, continuing to ply in the same direction as before. This may seem like it's not an important step, but it is!
6. After your two 2-ply yarns have been over-plied, it's time to make your gorgeous cabled yarn. For this step, I set my brake band tension so it feeds into the orifice as quickly as possible. It's recommended that you use the biggest whorl that you have for the same reason.
   
7. Take the two 2-plied yarns and ply them together with each other, spinning to the right (or in the original direction you spun your singles. There should be next to no effort needed for this - because of the over-plying from step #5, the two yarns will snap together easily. The result should be a balanced, beautiful yarn.

One of the most enjoyable parts to any spinning technique is experimenting and seeing what works for you. For me, my go-to spinning style is to spin a fat single with a thin single, creating my typical spiral yarns. Something interesting about these spiral yarns is that, in addition to being great by themselves, they also make an amazing palette for cable spinning. The cable adds more than an interesting pattern to yarn -- it also makes for stronger, more durable end product. Even soft fibers like merino and alpaca can be used for tough projects (such as socks) in this way since cabling adds so much strength.

Happy Spinning!

I am absolutely in love with mohair. There is such an amazing texture to it... it's so much smoother than any other fiber, and it's got an almost slippery feel to it. It also has a natural silky luster that makes it almost glow in the sunlight. I've recently gotten my hands on some raw mohair fleeces from a farmer who raises her own goats and sheep and they come from a very loving environment.

When my adventure started, I was faced with some understandably dirty, sticky locks. Here's the before washing photo of the mohair:

It took a few washes and rinses, but I was able to get the mohair clean of lanolin and ready to pick through. A little bit of chert (goat dandruff, for lack of better words) is common with mohair, so I had to pick through and remove the stray hay (VM), dirt, and chert so that all I had was beautiful locks. This process takes several hours for every pound of mohair that I process, since it's done all by hand to ensure that the locks stay as intact as possible (doll makers love to use mohair for doll hair since the curls are so lovely, and fellow spinners like myself love the texture of curly locks in our yarn). After picking through the fiber, I was left with this:

I love spinning fiber from the locks, and this was certainly a fun spinning session. I decided to take a small video to show how I did it. My goal with this yarn was to keep a little bit of the curly locks, but also have a fun, textured result.

And the final yarn is finished! I offer this yarn for $25/skein or 5 for $100 (a $25 savings!). Each skein of yarn is custom spun for my customers, and no two will be exactly the same.

I have a secret about Firestar that I'd like to share with everyone. Traditional fiber, like wool and alpaca, requires a pretty elaborate dying method that many people find incredibly time consuming. I consider my own personal method to be much easier and less hassle, even more so when you consider how I dye firestar. Now before I get into that, let me give you a brief overview for how I dye everything else:

To keep this post simple, I am only going to talk about what I do with Greener Shades Acid Dye (Ive used other dyes but this is my preferred type of dye). The methods are the same regardless of what type of dye I use, with one exception -- the firestar trick seems to only work with Greener Shades for some reason.

To dye roving:

I saturate the fiber in hot water, then lay out a large white baking pan. This is about the closest thing to cooking that i EVER do. After the initial pre-soak (only really necessary for tough fibers like merino, which are slightly hydrophobic and require a lot of battling to get submerged), I add just a hint of citric acid to the pan full of hot water, then lay the roving out in whatever way I want.

I then ignore the instructions for the dye completely.

I take a spoon or butter knife and dip it in the jars of powdered dye, taking out just a little bit of dye at a time. I sprinkle the dye in whatever place I want it to be (or just mix it in if I'm being "free") and let the colors blend themselves in the pan. It's pretty easy to get a feel for how much dye is enough and how much dye is too much -- there's a saturation point where the color simply won't take anymore and you don't want to waste your dye. Usually that's not an issue for me since I rarely go with super dark colors.
That's it. I mix it up, pop it in the oven for about 30 minutes on 225 F, and when I take it out the water is clear --- that's how you know it worked. If your water is still colored, then you either didn't put enough citric acid in (vinegar also works) or you put too much dye in.

I love this way of dying fiber because not only is it incredibly easy, but it's also highly effective and allows me to really "paint" on the colors wherever I want. As a life-long artist, this is very similar to watercolor painting, so I find myself enjoying it a lot.

Here's some photos to show the simple dying process of roving:

Something important about dying roving is that you need to lift up the roving to make sure the color has a chance to get under it and fully saturate it. Wool, alpaca, and most other animal fibers are naturally going to want to repel the water, so it sometimes takes a little convincing. I frequently use a potato masher or spoon to gently press the color into the fiber, and I've never had any felting issues. The trick is to be careful!

For firestar:  the "Dip & Rinse" method by Holly Madison:

Here's where the fun trick comes in!

If you don't know what Firestar is:
Firestar is often used to add sparkle and just a touch of glitz to fiber batts, rolags, and felting. A little goes a long way, and it's amazing how beautiful a little sparkle can be (unlike angelina fiber which is 1) scratchy 2) can't be dyed and 3) is a bit TOO in your face for some people's taste), firestar is simple and lovely (I still like angelina, it just has to be the right kind of project).

Firestar has an awesome advantage over roving though! Instead of needing to go through the acid process, and either microwaving or baking it, you can do what I do and get wonderful results.

I start by keeping my firestar dry and making small bowls of the colors I want to use. You can still do the sprinkle method, but since the dye sets so fast, it's better to be prepared.

No acid is required to set the color in firestar as long as you're using Greener Shades Acid Dyes.

Just dip the fiber in the color that you want, and move on to the next color. If you don't want the colors to blend, you can rinse in between dips. You can also blend colors -- for  example, I was making a batch of bright ranbow firestar for a custom order along with a pastel rainbow batch. For the pastel rainbow, I dipped the firestar in the red for just a second, then dipped part of the red and some undyed firestar into the yellow bowl, creating an orange color where they mixed. A few seconds in each color is all it takes for permanent, beautiful colors.

I discovered this trick in a happy accident when I dyed some firestar  the wrong color several months ago, and tried to wash it out. It didn't work... in fact, nothing I did got the color out! I realized at that moment that this could be a fantastic advantage since it makes dying take literally seconds instead of a half an hour!

If you want darker colors, you can do several dips (making sure to rinse in between since firestar gets saturated very quickly and will only hold a certain amount of dye at a time). An easier route is to just cook the firestar with the oven method for dark, bright colors. But if you want medium or light colors, the dip and rinse is the easiest way to go!
Your water will run clear after a second or two, and that's when you know the dye has set in.
And that's it! Let me know if you have any questions.

Here's some photos to show you the different colors I've gotten with Firestar using my method.