aking your own yarn with a hand spindle is surprisingly easy and fun. The yarn you make yourself is just as strong and usable as store-bought yarn, but much more charming. Once you get the hang of it – and it does take a few minutes to learn – you'll find that handspinning is a wonderfully satisfying and even meditative activity. You can even tuck your spinning in a bag and take it with you -- since you don't need a pattern and you're not counting rows or stitches, it's even more portable than knitting and crochet! You'll be surprised how quickly it adds up, too.

First, get your spindle!
You can buy a spindle or even a whole handspinning kit pretty cheaply, but it's much more fun to make your own.

A spindle is just a stick that you can wind your yarn on, with a weight or disk attached to it to help it spin. In the very old days, spindles were made of a twig with a rock tied to the bottom. These days, thanks to the craft store, there are dozens of ways to make a spindle.

Wooden wheels designed for toy cars work really well – find a pretty big one, maybe 2 or 3 inches across. A smaller one will make a very light spindle that might not be heavy enough to balance your spindle, and a bigger one will be too heavy and break the yarn. A plain wooden disk will do in a pinch: just drill a hole in the center, about the width of a pencil. Spindles have been made from used CDs, and even from polymer clay.

You also need a dowel that fits the hole in your disk. Cut it to a length of about 10 to 12 inches. Slide your wheel onto the dowel and glue it with wood glue about 1 ½ inches from the top. Sharpen the end of your dowel if you like – it seems to streamline the spinning a bit. Add small coffee-cup hook to top and reinforce it with wood glue. Let it dry!

If the wood of your dowel is a little rough, sand it and rub it with wax until it feels smooth. You don't want your yarn to snag or get splinters.

Next, get your fiber.
There are lots of places to buy fiber on the Internet. Look for roving, spinning fiber, or tops. Roving and tops are fibers that have been cleaned, combed, and processed into long fluffy rope. A fleece has not been processed this way; it will need to be cleaned and put through a carder. If you're lucky enough to have a spinning store nearby, it's easy to find. Some craft stores sell small amounts of fiber processed fiber inteded for felting – that works too.

Can you get it off an animal? If you have an angora rabbit, a sheep, or a goat, or an especially furry dog? As long as you can get the fur so that the fibers are all lying in the same direction, you'll be set!

Places like etsy.com also sell lovely hanks of hand-dyed, natural fiber. Look under “spinning” or “felting fiber” or “roving”

Wool is the easiest fiber to spin, and some wools are stickier than others. A coarse wool will spin the easiest, but make a less satisfying product. I found spinning much easier when I found some rough coarse fiber that looked like old lady hair and would make a better rug than a scarf. Once I got the hang of spinning that, it was easy to adjust my technique and spin other finer fibers, like merino, silk and alpaca.

Now, you're ready to spin.
First, understand that fibers want to cling together into yarn: they have tiny little hooks up and down the shaft. Your job is to get the fibers close together enough so they their hooks can get together. The best way to do this is by twisting them. (Felting is the other way, but that's not our topic!) This is a little bit tricky, but don't give up.

Prepare your roving by pulling it between your handspinning-- not so much that the fibers pull apart, but just enough so they slide apart. This is called pre-drafting, and it helps line the fiber up and makes it easier to spin.

Get a little wad of fiber. Pinch a bit out – this is drafting -- and twist it. See how the ends of the fibers you're twisting extend back into the wad and pull out more fiber? This is how spinning works. Your job is to twist and pull, twist and pull.

Keep pulling and twisting, pulling and twisting, until you have a thing that loosely resembles a yarn. Don't let go of the yarn, or it will spring back and untwist. Fibers take a little while to get used to their new shape.

As you twist and pull, hold the yarn with your non-working fingers, taking care not to let it untwist.

After you have a six or eight inches of “yarn,” wind it onto the shank of your spindle.

Thread the yarn through the hook at the top and continue spinning the spindle so it continues your twist. Be consistent: always spin your yarn either clockwise or counterclockwise so you won't have to constantly check it.

That's basically all there is to it. Whenever you have about twelve inches of yarn, wind it onto the spindle. Soon you'll have a whole bunch.

When you get really good, you'll be able to let the spindle hange and spin while you draft. Until then, feel free to “park” your spindle on your lap while you draft, then pick it up to get it spinning again.

When you have so much that your spindle feels heavy and wobbles, take it off.
Always keeping it taut, wind it around and around the back of a chair (or a niddy-noddy, if you have one) so if makes a large ring. Tie a yarn in each end to keep your skein together.

Wash your skein gently in lukewarm water with some kind of soap. I've always used dish soap, but Woolite works well, and there are even special soaps available that have lavender oil in them to discourage moths. (Smells nice, too.)

Hang it somewhere to dry. Weighting it down with a towel will keep it straighter and more professional looking, but will also make it less soft and fluffy. When it's thoroughly dry, twist into a skein. You don't have to worry about keeping it taut anymore, because the drying has fixed your yarn into its new shape.

-- What to make? Anything! Crochet a pretty flower, or knit yourself a head band. Once you get going, you'll even have enough yarn for a hat, or a sweater, or an afghan.

Rhian Ellis is a writer, novelist, and hobby farmer who raises chickens, tends a garden, and oversees her two precocious boys in upstate New York. When not finding creative outlets for writing, she creates wonderful hand dyed wools, whole fibers, and more for sale.
To view or purchase her fiber-works, see her Etsy Shop: Phiberia Handspun Yarns

For information on her writing, please see her blog at: www.wardsix.blogspot.com