On the weekend I joined the local Spinners and Weavers group. They were lovely enough to lend me an Ashford spinning wheel to learn on and to last me until I can afford my own. It's a single tredle 'Traditional' and although it looked really unloved, mouldy and dusty when I first saw it but a bit of wood balm and some elbow grease brought out it's true colours.
Please forgive the things in the background, it's probably the neatest area in the house.
They also gave me some fleece to learn how to clean, comb and spin with. This was the only bag that didn't have moths or smelt musty and off. It's a nice dark fleece and really has some differences in colour. The purple thing in the background is a sheet which I'm keeping some of the fleece on, this is only about 1/3 (if that) of the whole bag!
OK so I don't have the right metal combs to prepare the fleece so I'm using an old pimply dog brush (sorry I forgot to take pictures of them too) and a brush I use to use with cattle. With my improvisation I have managed to comb some of the fleece and spun it. I have not washed it as yet as I was going to do it after I ply the two strands together into a yarn, as what use is it washing the whole fleece when I might only use half of it?
I know it's not that good and I need lots of practise but I'm quite proud of my first attempt on a wheel. As you can see there's a variation in the colours between the pieces that I'm spinning with, there's also some really thick pieces that didn't spin as tight as I would've liked but hey, gotta learn somewhere, right?
I hope to put some more pictures of my spinning when I do a bit more... I did all of what's on the bobbin since Saturday night, I'm getting use to starting and trying to stop the wheel with my foot as well as not getting it to jerk with each movement.
