First steps in Handspinning: How to make a CD spindle and start spinning your own yarn today

Spindle spinning on a CD spindle

At the beginning of our homeschool adventure, when my daughter was in grade 1, we read A Pioneer Story (published in the USA as A Pioneer Sampler) — and we came across the concept of handspinning yarn for the first time. The book talked about using a drop spindle to spin yarn and we decided [...]

Wool Fleece Washing Basics

Ready for washing

Commercial roving is lovely.  Its perfect.  It takes thousands of individual fleeces, washes them together, picks them into a uniform mass and cards them together. Often the carding process is taken one step further, and the fleece are pin-drafted to take out all the short fibres, noils and veggie bits.  The result is a perfect, [...]