Learning How to Spin Fabric

Having a lot of sheep = advantage

Many of those who have a lot of sheep as their livestock just recently found out that there is more than one benefit from having a single one. There are a lot of things that people can earn from with sheep. For instance, they only have to harvest the wool from the sheep’s body and then use it to knit scarves by spinning it. These scarves are usually used during winter.

Is it difficult?

People have oftentimes wondered if the ancient people who manually did some spinning, weaving and sewing found it difficult. They had to spin the clothes they had to wear by themselves from cotton, flax or wool.

At present, people do not have to spin or weave fabric just so they could have something to wear. They probably cannot even imagine having to knit their clothes or their socks from cotton and spin it into threads.

People have the freedom to decide if they want to learn how to spin yarns and knit them for beautiful scarves or sweaters that are made of wool. They do not have to spin or weave the clothes they put on their bodies, but they could have the luxury to learn how to spin or weave for fun.

Wool directly from sheep

If the wool comes directly from the sheep, they will have to wash the fleece first before anything else. Afterwards, the fleece should be checked for some short guard hairs because any fiber that is shorter than one inch will not look good after being spun. Thus, the best way is to remove these short and useless fibers and discard of them completely.

Getting started

Once the wool has been collected, they have to be placed into the electric carders, if electric carding machinery is convenient. Without an electric carder, only small clumps of wool should be used. Place the tiny clumps on the center of a paddle, making sure that the paddle’s hands are not pointing towards each other, and then brush the wool. 

Once all knots have already been worked out, just peel out the wool that has already been carded so that the bristles are removed. After this is done, roll the whole thing like a sausage and it is now ready for the spinning process.

Time to spin

For those who have always dreamed of having their very own spinning wheels like in famous fairy tales they have to save hundreds of dollars. In order to save, they can always just buy some affordable drop spindles that can be found in most fiber sellers.

Also, a homemade drop spindle can also be used with the help of two old compact discs and a piece of a half inch dowel rod that measures around twelve inches. Leave just an inch and one half on one of the ends and place a screw-in hook at the shorter end of the rod. When this is done, the drop spindle is made.
