5 Quick Tips for Beginning Spinning on a Spindle

As you know I only started spinning a week ago, but I thought some tips from a beginner’s point of view, may help other struggling beginners.

A little bit goes a long way.

You need a very thin strip of fiber to spin yarn, and to this end you need to prepare your roving before you begin. The process of easing the fiber out to spin is called ‘drafting’, and it determines the thickness of your unplied yarn. Predrafting is an easy, calming exercise, and you can do it while watching TV, chatting to a friend, or even waiting for a program to load (especially if you’re on Windows!). Thanks to Yarnhog for her help, check out her pre-drafting tutorial.

Watch the drafting triangle.

Hold the fiber splayed out with your thumb and forefinger to form a triangle. If the fibers are nicely spread, the roving is easier to draft. Make sure there is no twist in the drafting triangle.

Wind tight.

When winding yarn onto your spindle, keep it quite tight, and try to fill your spindle in a cone shape, wider at the top than the bottom. This will help your spindle spin longer, even when it’s getting full. Also try to keep about 1” of the bottom of the spindle free from yarn, to make it easier to spin it.

Your spindle is full when you decide it’s full.

You’ll notice your spindle get slower and more cumbersome as it fills, but as long as the experience isn’t becoming too annoying, you can keep going. If your spindle has no notch, and you’re having trouble with your yarn slipping as your spindle fills, have a look at this helpful Knitty article.

Keep your pre-drafted roving out of the way.

Wind your roving around your wrist like a bracelet to keep it from drifting against the yarn you’re spinning, or things can get messy!

Do you have any tips that helped you as a beginner? Leave them in the comments. Have a lovely weekend!