How to: Make a Niddy Noddy

Since getting my new spinning wheel I've wanted to make a niddy noddy.  You can pick up a niddy noddy up for around $20.00 but I thought if you can make one for less why not.  This is a very basic niddy noddy that Lewie helped me make.

Materials:

Large 1/2" wooden dowel
Hand saw or table saw
Two wood screws
Drill

Directions:

1. Cut your wooden dowel into three pieces: two 12" pieces and one 17" piece

2. Using your screws and drill, attach the 12" pieces to the ends of the 17" piece in opposite directions.
3. That's it!  You can then sand down the edges if you need to and or stain it.

Because the dowel is 1/2" in width the whole niddy noddy will measure 18" which is half a yard so one time around with yarn will measure 1 yard.

Now that I have a niddy noddy I can make skeins with the yarn I've been spinning.  I put the first batch on and measured it last week:  about 66 yards total.  I need over 300 yards for the pattern I want to knit!  I better get spinning!

Introducing Ruby

Let me introduce you to Ruby, my new single treadle single drive Ashford Traveller spinning wheel.  Isn't she a beauty?  She took a detour on her way to our house from New Zealand at some lady's house who didn't want her and sold her on eBay after only 2 hours of use.  Good things come to those that wait.  I've been wanting a spinning wheel since I took spinning lessons last year in New Mexico but have been putting it off because of price and because Ashford doesn't make the Traveller in a single treadle anymore.  I learned on a single treadle and like it the best and love the Traveller because it's small enough to fit in a car and take to spinning groups.  So I waited and last month this wonder popped up on eBay and because I have a great husband who agreed to an early birthday present for me she now sits in our house newly waxed and wonderful.

Remember this?  I've been spinning it on Ruby and  I've already successfully spun a bobbin of it into 2ply yarn that I plan on using to make a shaw:

Is it silly to name your wheel?  Is it silly to take this many pictures of it?  Probably, but she is pretty and so important to me.  It feels so nice to be back to spinning regularly.  I see fields of cotton in my future and maybe a sheep or two with this wheel!

Spinning school graduate

This week was my last spinning class!  I have officially graduated from spinning school.  As my teacher put it, I am now her textile daughter.  For our last few classes I learned how to ply.  The picture above is my recipe card for the skein pictured.   On the left is what the single looks like (yarn that has been spun but not plied) and the right has my samples of different plying: (from the top) 4-ply cable, 2-ply, Navajo 3-ply, and 4-ply basic.  I ended up making the skein with the Navajo 3-ply and I think it turned out great.  It's really fun to see all of my spinning work start to form itself into skeins of beautiful yarn.  I still have a lot of the green yarn that I've been posting pictures of to ply and I will post pictures as soon as I do it.

I was so grateful of my spinning lessons that I had a whorl made especially for my teacher from 2 Cranes.  It turned out wonderful.  I was able to pick the piece of turquoise I wanted it made from and the piece I picked was from the Kingman Mine in Arizona.  I think JoAnn really liked it.  I'm sad to see my classes end, but excited to start spinning for future knitting projects and learn how to dye with natural dyes from Janet at Lofty's on 60.  More projects to come soon...

Lofty's on 60

Lewie and I went to visit my friend Janet's shop today:  Lofty's on 60.  She has ten angora goats, three of which are this years offspring.  They are darling!  She spins beautiful mohair from her goats and brought some in to show me today that she dyed with peach leaves.  She lets her goats roam the backyard freely and as she puts it, nobody seems to mind because they mow all the neighbors yards for free.  When we went over to visit them the three young ones were in her backyard but her other seven goats were wondering down the road.  After cooing over the babies - they were so shy but so cute! - we decided to walk down a ways to see the other adults.

When we finally found them in the back of our town's video and laundry store we apparently scared them and they went running to the front and starting trotting down US Hwy 60!  It was a funny site to see them all walking down the hwy together with cars passing by.  After a few houses they went back down a side road on their way back to Janet's for dinner. 

Silly goats!  It was quite an adventure.  After my spinning classes are over I plan on having Janet teach me to dye wool and mohair using natural dyes.  She's really good at it and always has such beautiful colors of mohair.  I'm really looking forward to that.  A whole new world to discover.  Maybe if I'm lucky, and she has enough, I'll get to purchase some kid mohair from her to spin too!

Spinning Class #6

Back from another spinning class.  Only two more to go!  I'm working steady on the merino wool that my teacher dyed a lovely greenish blue color.  I'm trying to spin it everyday so that I'll have enough stuff to play with when plying.  Pretty isn't it?

Today I got to play with flax - which is spun into linen.  It's much different then working with wool or cotton.  It's stiffer but has a wonderful luster and is incredibly strong.  I brought some flax home to play with this week - see picture above, it's the white fiber.  I also got to make a few cotton puni's at class and got to bring those home too.  I made them with the natural orange cotton that I just love.  Don't they look like big worms?  I'm really enjoying spinning school and will be sad when it's over, but it's taught me so much new stuff about sheep, raising sheep, growing cotton, fibers in general, spinning, history and being more self sufficient.  Next week starts the two-part ending class about plying.  I'm excited to be able to see what all this fiber I've been spinning will look like as yarn!

A new toy!

Meet my new toy:

It's a ball winder!  Ever since I saw my teacher use one I haven't started a new knitting project because I didn't want to make a ball without one.  She had one today that she was selling at a good price and I snatched it up.  I'm addicted.  It rolls yarn into a nice ball with a flat bottom (so it won't roll) and it pulls from the inside.  No more chasing yarn around the floor like I've been doing.  I was reading about ball winders online and in a comments section a woman said, "Do I need to join Ball Winders Anonymous?"  Haha!  I can relate to this now - I got home from school and spun all the yarn I am using into balls with my ball winder.  When I ran out I tired to find more!  Look how pretty it makes them:

Anyone that doesn't have a ball winder and is a knitter, weaver, crocheter and/or a spinner - I highly recommend getting one.  They are really fantastic!  My teacher tells me they can also be used for plying but I won't know how to do this for a few more weeks!

Spinning Class #3

Recap of spinning class this week:

I learned all about the Bradford system - the system that classifies each breed of sheep by type of wool.  For example, the softest known wool is merino and it ranks high on the Bradford system.  Courser wools, like rug wools, are lower on the list.  The system is based on how many hanks you can get from 1lb of washed and combed wool.  Theoretically, if you had 1lb of course wool that was in the 40's on the Bradford system then you should be able to get 40 hanks out of it.  One hank is 560 yards or 7 skeins.  It's a little confusing but once you start knowing breeds of sheep and their Bradford system ranking you can begin to figure out how course or fine that sheep's wool will be and how much wool you'll get from a fleece without even seeing it.  Interesting stuff.  I also got to play with cotton at my class.  I've started to really love cotton.  I was able to card some cotton lint today, which is the process of 'brushing' it to blend the fibers so you can spin it.  To take of the cotton lint from the card when you are done you have to use a small dowel and roll it - doing this makes a hollow tube of cotton called a puni.  I really love puni's!  After you have a puni you can start to spin.  You can spin cotton straight from the seed but puni's are really fun to make.  I even made one that was part orange part white which will make a neat looking yarn and it's all natural.  Cotton grows in neat colors - see picture above.   For my homework this week I have to de-seed a bunch of cotton that my teacher plucked from a cotton field.  There are a lot of seeds in cotton!

I also have to get all the vegetal material out of some purple churro wool she gave me.  Hopefully we'll be carding this next week to spin.  I may get to start using a spinning wheel next week too!

Spinning Class #2

I finished my spinning homework!  My pink ball of fluff turned into pretty pink string.  This will be plied with something else toward the end of my spinning classes so I can't wait to see what it will look like with another color.  It wasn't hard to spin it but it took patience at the beginning and now I have come to really enjoy spinning and see it as a relaxing thing to do.  Yesterday was my second spinning class and JoAnn taught me to wash wool! 

Every time I've been in class all I can think about it someday owning our own sheep.  I really find it fascinating and it's leading to more things I'm interested in like sheep shearing school.  Now I know the basic's the spinning, how to wash wool, how to care for wool and yarn, some of the history behind spinning and the correct terminology.  In the next class I will be practicing combing and brushing wool as well as maybe starting on a spinning wheel. 

My homework for this week is to spin some of JoAnn's hand dyed wool that is a lovely lime green bluish color.  This will be much thinner then the pink fluff I spun so it may be more difficult but I will post pictures when I get it done.   

Spinning 101

Yesterday was my first spinning class.  Since moving to New Mexico I have become very interesting in fibers of all kinds and feel like I'm in the right place to learn more about them.  There are fiber guilds all over the state and many people that have been weaving, spinning and knitting for decades.  I was lucky enough to be introduced to one of these people: JoAnn.  Yesterday was my first spinning class with her.  She has been spinning for over 30 years and holds an intense one-on-one class for those ready to learn to spin.

Spinning school consists of eight, four hour one-on-one sessions.  Yesterday was day one.  She is a wealth of information and has an extensive fiber library.  I was able to see and touch cultivated worm silk, tussan wild worm silk including unprocessed cocoons, alpaca fleece, wool, spun copper, soy silk, flax, mohair and many more neat fibers.  Like my teacher, I find wool the most interesting - there are over 900 breeds of sheep and each breed has different wool as well as each flock in those breeds as well as each sheep in that flock - every fleece is different from another, no two sheep are the same.   What I also find interesting is cotton.  Did you know that cotton comes in over 40 colors naturally including blue?  My husband and I try to be as environmentally friendly as possibly and try to strive for self sustainability so the thought of having our own sheep and goats and growing our own cotton for spinning some day makes me very excited.

This is the basic:  learning to make thread and yarn.  Being able to control the dyes used in our clothing is so important to me.  We have both been reading Living Downstream by Sandra Steingraber and realizing the importance of small things like this.  According to her book, "Elevated cancer rates are also found among painters, welders, asbestos workers, plastics manufactures, dye and fabric makers, firefighters, miners, printers, and radiation workers."  This is another reason why I use organic unbleached cotton in my items for Ash Tree Organics.  The chemicals used to dye clothing these days are carcinogenic.  Raising our own sheep and growing our own cotton is just the next step for us.  It's our way of getting one step closer to being off the map.  Besides wool and mohair,  sheep and goats are good for making milk, soap, and cheese.  It's a long way off, but for now Spinning School is teaching me a whole new world about wool and fibers and I can't wait to start showing you what I make.  My homework assignment is to spin the pink fiber (pictured above) onto my spindle before the next class.  Wish me luck!