I just got my copy of Intentional Spinning and it has some great info in it, so I'm hopeful I'll figure it out. I am going to need to figure out something for bobbins (since I has the poors) and make a go at plying. I was really excited when I figured out how to make a nice even thin yarn, but I am afraid it will be to fragile, so I realized I was going to have to ply it. Now to figure out how to spin this top whorl with my left hand.
for handspindling, i would seriously recommend an investigation into navajo ply because it seems like it would be the easiest to manage. and really....you should be able to use a toilet paper tube as a bobbin. the ratio doesn't matter since you aren't spinning on to it, just using it to hold your singles. i would recommend finding some sort of stationary post to hold it. like if your husband holds a pen and you put the toilet paper tube on the pen - it should spin freely around the pen for your unwinding purposes. and it would be really silly for you to BUY a bobbin since you don't know what kind of spinning wheel you want yet.
i like the alden amos book of hand-spinning, which has way more information than i will ever use in it, and which is on semi-permanant loan to me because i have nice friends and i also has the poor (hence no decadent silk yarn for me). amos is REALLY opinionated though, so if you decide to get it/find it used/whatever take into consideration that this guy is a perfectionist and is really opinionated. take his words with a grain of salt, because sometimes he puts you through more steps than are strictly necessary. that being said, he knows his stuff, he builds his own wheels, he spells out the math. and he's sometimes funny.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-12 03:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-12 04:05 pm (UTC)and really....you should be able to use a toilet paper tube as a bobbin. the ratio doesn't matter since you aren't spinning on to it, just using it to hold your singles. i would recommend finding some sort of stationary post to hold it. like if your husband holds a pen and you put the toilet paper tube on the pen - it should spin freely around the pen for your unwinding purposes.
and it would be really silly for you to BUY a bobbin since you don't know what kind of spinning wheel you want yet.
i like the alden amos book of hand-spinning, which has way more information than i will ever use in it, and which is on semi-permanant loan to me because i have nice friends and i also has the poor (hence no decadent silk yarn for me). amos is REALLY opinionated though, so if you decide to get it/find it used/whatever take into consideration that this guy is a perfectionist and is really opinionated. take his words with a grain of salt, because sometimes he puts you through more steps than are strictly necessary.
that being said, he knows his stuff, he builds his own wheels, he spells out the math. and he's sometimes funny.