Spinning 2ply wool using a spindle

To prepare for the spinning process, I washed and carded some wool into rolags.

Watch video to see the process of spinning wool

• When the wool broke or when I needed to add a new rolag of wool onto the length of spun wool, I separated the fibres at the end of length of spun wool and connected the opened up the fibres to a new rolag and spun it together. As the wool gets spun together the fibres lock together and gain strength.
• When the length of the wool became quite long, I rolled it onto the spindle as shown in the video above.

• When I had spun two lots of single ply spun wool, I spun them together on the spindle by spinning the spindle the opposite way to the first way I spun them. As they were originally spun quite tight they spun together really easily when plying them together.
• I then put the 2ply wool onto a niddy-noddy to create a hank and tied the two ends together.

Photo showing 2ply wool on the niddy-noddy.

To stop the wool from getting tangled up, I tied in some string in four places. (see photo above)

I then removed the wool from the niddy-noddy and twisted it and tied it up into a twisted hank.

Hank of wool in ice cold water

• To lock the fibres together and prevent the yarn from trying to unravel, I set the twist in the yarn. There are a couple of different ways to do this and I chose this technique as it seemed to make the most sense to me.
• I set up two bowls the same size next to each other, in one I had ice cold water and in the other I had some hot water.
• I let the wool soak in the ice cold water for around 60 seconds making sure it soaked up the water properly.
• Then, I gently squeezed the cold water out making sure not to ring the water out as it could cause felting.
• Next, I repeated the same process with the hot water.

Hank of wool in hot water

• I repeated the process of dipping the wool between the cold and cold water around 3 or 4 times. This is to enable the spin in the wool to even out and lock together.

🌱Kat Webb🌱