CAL and Handspun Cowl Pattern

First, I'd like to share that I'm starting my very first CAL (crochet-a-long). Moogly Blog did this last year, however I didn't participate. I'm super excited to be starting it this year, and have already finished the first square "Tamara's Kismet." Basically, you get a new (free!) pattern for a 12 inch square every two weeks. At the end of November (24 squares) you'll have enough to make an afghan, using December to join/finish. I think this might be a commitment I can handle! :D I peeked through some of the finished ones from 2014, and really liked one someone did that was a totally mono-tone off-white. Inspired by her, I started with this yellow baby yarn. (I accidentally purchased a pound of this stuff, not realizing it was the wrong shade of yellow!) I'm also considering doing a second square in a multicolor palate, if I choose to do so, I'll share photos here. :) You may notice, I did add an extra hdc edge that wasn't in the pattern, my square was just shy of the 12 inch specification and the hdc add just the right amount! :)

Also, I finally finished working on a cowl I've been picturing since probably last August. I knew I wanted a cowl that was gray with a pop of another color. After lots of deliberation, I finally arrived at a hot pink color and my good friend kindly dyed wool for me using 'flamingo.' I've been spinning every since to prepare for the cowl, changing my mind on how it would look throughout, until I finally decided I was ready! Wouldn't you know it, with all that deliberation and planning time, once I finally made a choice, I jumped right into it without taking photos, measuring yardage, or anything! Darn my enthusiasm! The yarn is all wool, both are two ply and I think they are a bulky weight yarn. The middle is a 'candy cane' 2 play using solid pink and the naturally variegated gray. The outer colors are also two ply using the same naturally variegated gray. It's a VERY simple pattern, and more than likely this already exists elsewhere, but I hope you enjoy it. :)

A note about the i-cord. As you may imagine, my handspun yarn is often limited in yardage. I did have more, however it was a slightly different shade of gray and I tried very hard to limit the yardage so I didn't have to use this. For that reason, 3 i-cords were knitted and used to join the cowl. The i-cords sit on the back of your neck, and are nearly invisible if your hair is down. I originally did this to save yarn, however once I finally to to wear it, I realized that it also keeps my neck from being too hot and the wool from being too bulky in that area. (Remember, I live in Florida) :D I liked it so much, I'm definitely considering doing it on the next cowl I make. If you don't care for that look, simply make the knitted portion longer and join the edges together.

Supplies:
Bulky yarn, roughly 200-300 yds.
US size 10 knitting needles
Cable needle
Tapestry Needle
Double point needles to make an i-cord.

Construction:
I made the center section first, then picked up stitches along the edge and used a garter stitch to widen the cowl. The i-cords followed and were attached with a tapestry needle.

Middle:
Cast on 12 sts.
(Please note, I don't mention it in the pattern, but I do slip the first stitch of EVERY row to create a tight edge.)
Rows 1-4: knit in st. stitch
Row 5: (RS). k2, place 4 on cable needle, k4, k4 from cable needle, k2 remaining 2.
Repeat rows 1-5 until cowl reaches desired length. (Mine was about 20 inches or 17-18 'repeats'

Edges:
Pick up and knit stitches along the 'long' edge of the middle section. Work in garter stitch until cowl reaches the desired width. (Mine was roughly 2 inches, close to the width of the pink section.)

i-Cord Back:
Using the dpns, knit 3 i-cords 8 inches long, each.

Finishing: Use the i-cords to join the edges of the cowl. Weave in ends (I know, I didn't do this in the photos) and you're finished! Hope you enjoy!

~Farm Girl Teacher

Handspun Yarn!

I get to share some very exciting news today! (I was planning on making this post sooner, but after spending a few hours having my tire repaired, it's posting a little late. I know it's short notice for some, but I hope you can make it regardless!) For a few months now, I have joined two very amazing ladies at a local farmer's market here in Central Florida. They have goat and sheep and make beautiful soaps, lotion bars, lip balms, fudge, and more using milk from their goats. I've mentioned one of them before as being responsible for getting me involved in spinning, and always being available for a crafty consultant when I get stuck. (Seriously, she's amazing) Every farmer's market, I sit at their booth and do a spinning demonstration. I enjoy the opportunity to meet new people and talk to them about an art I love, and one that's often not well known. I meet tons of kids and they love asking questions about spinning and about the goat and sheep that we bring to the market as well. (And I get to eat fudge) :D Several people have requested that I offer my yarn for sale, and while I was initially reluctant, I'm pleased to announce that I will have a few skeins for sale at tomorrow's market! I hope to see anyone who lives here locally, it's a wonderful market and has a plethora of handmade goods, delicious food and more.

Here is some of the yarn I've spun recently. There are a few skeins I'm still debating keeping for myself, but the majority of it will be at the market tomorrow.

This was from round one of spinning:

The first is an orange wool, single ply yarn. It is approximately 75 yards in sock/fingering weight.
The second is a brown wool, also single ply. It is approximately 81 yards in lace weight.
Third is a single ply dark gray wool, approximately 58 yards in bulky weight.
Fourth is a two-ply light gray yarn approximately 55 yards in bulky weight.
And finally is a three-ply gray and pink yarn approximately 93 yards in super bulky weight. (The last two are the ones I'm debating keeping for myself :D )

This is round two and are still hanging to dry. I'm slightly worried the last one won't be completely dry before tomorrow, so there is a small chance it won't be there.

The first is a 'candy cane' 2 ply, gray and teal. 113 yards of Bulky weight yarn.
The second is also a 'candy cane' 2 play using the same color teal and a pale yellow. It is 26 yards of worsted weight yarn.
The third is a green that kidn of reminds me of a 'military' green. It's 157 yards of sport/fingering weight.
Finally is a coffee colored 2 ply brown. 317 yards of bulky weight yarn.

 ***Please note, my measurements are approximate. Please keep in mind that variations in yarn weight are a normal part of handspun yarn. I use a wpi method to determine yarn weight.

I can't find a website to link to but it's called The Marketplace at Hibiscus Park. This came from the Chamber of Commerce Website:

From 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM
Hibiscus Park, 7th Street and Bougainvillea Ave Dade City
Contact: Lucy Avila 352-521-5858
Event Email: lucyvila7070@gmail.com

First Saturday of each Month (September 2014-May 2015)
Come shop our relaxing, outdoor, vendor-friendly market place in Hibiscus Park. Locally grown produce, plants, arts & crafts, and so much more!

Wish me luck and hope to see you there! :)

~Farm Girl Teacher

Horse Pillow

As I discussed previously, this is one of the Christmas gifts I made for my a family member. You can see this post for more information.

She is in sixth grade and loves her horse, Drawdy. This customized pillow has both her name and her horses name and image on the front. Additional details include a small key ring added to the halter, fringe for the mane and forelock, textured yarn details in the ears and heart, and a faux leather backing. This pattern is available for free at my Ravelry and Craftsy stores. If you came here through those sites, welcome! Hopefully I can give a bit more insight here.

My model

There are so many ways to customize this pattern! You can change the name (I included an alphabet and number chart in the pattern),  the name, alter the colors, pick a unique backing, etc. Please email me at thatfarmgirlteacher@gmail.com if you need assistance, or if you'd like to order a finished pillow from me.

To learn about my inspiration, please visit this post.

This was the pattern designed for the horse pillow. You begin at the bottom right of the grid and finish at the top. To me the neck is kind of skinny looking, but after the fringe is added it looks much better! :) Also, I wouldn't advise skipping the halter. I actually added it in order to create a distinction between the horses head and neck, without the halter, something is just...off.

I didn't add quite as many embellishments with this one as they weren't really necessary. The heart is made from a really pretty textured yarn I've had forever, and the inside of the ears is made from a yarn I spun myself from Alpaca fiber to add texture and shadowing. Originally this was going to be pink, but in hindsight I decided it made the horse look like a very bizarre mouse...

The backing on this pillow is a faux leather I've had lying in my stash forever. Because it's faux, it's soft and supple and can easily be punctured with a yarn needle.  To get the perfect size, I pinned the finished front to the fabric and cut around it. It doesn't fray, but just in case, I used pinking shears to prevent any possible fraying. If using a fabric that does, simply use your favorite method of finishing to finish the edge. Using a yarn needle and embroidery thread or tatting yarn, complete a blanket stitch around the perimeter. You'll want to insert the needle about a quarter inch from the edge (or just under your hem, if you created one) and make each stitch about a quarter inch apart.

Using the blanket stitched edge, join the front and back together, wrong sides together using a single crochet stitch. Leave a small section open along the edge and remember to stuff it before you finish closing. My favorite part about this, is probably the fact that you don't have to weave in a million ends, just stuff them in the pillow. :)
 
I'd also like to share some important "Do's" and "Don'ts" I learned using the afghan stitch:
DO: Customize this pattern, or create your own, I promise you can do it!
DO: Watch the Gege Crochet tutorials on YouTube, especially the one on color changes.
DO: Take lots of pictures of the process, I really wish I had taken more. 
DO: Stay organized when arranging the skeins, the order you use them is best.
DON'T: Try to travel with this. This is really not the project you work on in the car or at the doctor's office. Sometimes you'll have so many skeins attached at once you'll have more of a headache untying the knots than it's worth.
DON'T: Over embellish. Step away from the work OFTEN and eliminate the inclusion of truly unnecessary details that would clutter and take away from the design rather than add to it. 
DON'T: Be afraid to ask your family member for their opinion. My sister the horse-lover was especially helpful on this one. She was really helpful for advice on getting the correct proportions when designing the pattern, and determining which of the embellishments were unnecessary.
DON'T: Design the pattern in one sitting. Step away from it often to get an overall perspective and clear your head after a while. This is more important than you realize. Had I not stepped away from this pattern...I'd have made a bizarre looking mouse. :)

I really hope you enjoy this pattern and it inspires you to make your own! :)

~That Farm Girl Teacher

Bucket Truck Pillow

As I discussed previously, this is one of the Christmas gifts I made for my a family member. You can see this post for more information. This would also make a wonderful new baby gift, retirement gift, new hire gift, etc.

He is 7 or 8 and loves everything about his dad's job as a lineman. This customized pillow has his name on the front, his dad's bucket truck, and the back is made from one of his dad's work shirts! I actually think he had a hard time deciding which of the sides he liked better! This pattern is available for free at my Ravelry and Craftsy stores. If you came here through those sites, welcome! Hopefully I can give a bit more insight here.

They were the inspiration behind last year's present, too! :)

There are so many ways to customize this pattern! You can change the name (I included an alphabet in the pattern), or if you're making this for an adult as a retirement gift, take the name off entirely and change it to the hire year, or a nickname. (Number chart is also included) Make the logo specific to another company, or take it off entirely, alter the colors, pick a unique backing, etc. Please email me at thatfarmgirlteacher@gmail.com if you need assistance, or if you'd like to order a finished pillow from me.

I'll start with my inspiration. As I mentioned before, Gege Crochet made a really awesome Mario afghan that served as my initial muse. It began when I had an interest in why exactly one would want to learn to do the Afghan Stitch or Tunisian Crochet. Everything I'd seen so far seemed dull as it was always worked in one color and seemed easy to do the same thing with knitting or crochet. I stumbled on her YouTube videos accidentally and fell in love with the technique and the unique pattern she was creating. If this is your first time doing the Afghan stitch, or if you've never attempted doing all these crazy color changes I SERIOUSLY recommend her YouTube tutorials. It was how I learned and I found I needed little to no outside assistance as I was learning. Even if you're pretty well-versed, at least watch her video on making color changes. Doing it 'wrong' can create holes in your project, and tie your yarn into a knot the size of your head.

I dove right in, actually starting with a laptop case I started for my sister. (And still haven't finished, I know, I know, don't judge.) She wasn't really using a pattern for say, but was using pixelated pictures. The Mario game lends itself well to that as it is very 'blocky' but I was trying to create a horse, and didn't even know where to begin. Other patterns weren't specific to my task, and didn't look like my sister's horse. Finally, I pulled out some grid paper, taped four sheets together, and started making my own pattern.

The 'pattern' for Lawton's pillow.

I found that the best way to do this was to basically draw the design I wanted in pencil as if there wasn't grid paper, and then go back and match the blocks to the penciled in drawings. For example, I drew the circle of the wheel, then matched squares to my original line, keeping it symmetrical. This is really useful for curved lines because before doing this, everything with a curve basically looked...stupid. I also ran a quick crayon over it, sometimes in the actual color I wanted, more often in whatever was handy to get a better idea of the overall affect. When stitching, you'll begin in the bottom right hand corner and work up.

Gege didn't add much to the fabric after she'd stitched it, mostly because it wasn't really necessary for her design, but as soon as I finished this one I knew I had to add to it. I grabbed my yarn needle and yarn and used back stitching to add doors in the bed of the truck, a truck number, a step under the drivers door, outlining around his name, lines for the fender, the 'w' in the logo, lines along the top of the bed to add shadowing, etc. I also used cross stitches to make the head lights and tail lights (I forgot them originally) and half cross stitches to make the slope of the boom a little more gentle and not so 'stair-steppy.' I also slip sitched over the diagonals in the logo to make them pop more. I wish I'd taken photos pre and post embellishments so I can show you how remarkable the change was, but I really think this was a design where the embellishments made a huge difference in the overall look.

I had a little fun with the yarns used as well. The hubcaps aren't actually yarn, but quarter-inch silver metallic ribbon. The yarn used in the name is a beautiful hand-spun, variegated yarn I bought at a LYS in Asheville, NC that I'd been saving for the 'perfect' project. The stripes weren't originally planned. I planned on using the yellow at the bottom for the entire pillow, I knew I'd run out and bought more, but alas, when I arrived home I found it was just a shade off, the result of coming from a different dye lot. I was NOT starting over, so the stripes were a solution to this speed bump. I actually wound up liking the stripes better than I would have liked a solid yellow background.

Originally I was going to use a denim backing, but I thought a more personal touch would be to use the actual shirt used by the company. My dad also works there, but I really wanted the shirt to be specific to Lawton so through a lot of help from his mom, a friend, and my sister, they were able to get the shirt to me just in time! If you'd also like to use a shirt, I wouldn't suggest going smaller than a men's size medium. You could certainly use a smaller shirt, but know you'll probably need to do some patching in order to make it large enough. To get the perfect size, I pinned the finished front to the shirt and cut around it. You could probably use pinking shears to prevent fraying but I wanted to be double-sure this would last for many years, so I completed a double-fold machine hem, first. You could also serge the edge, or complete any hem you prefer. Using a yarn needle and embroidery thread or tatting yarn, complete a blanket stitch around the perimeter. You'll want to insert the needle about a quarter inch from the edge (or just under your hem, if you created one) and make each stitch about a quarter inch apart.

Using the blanket stitched edge, join the front and back together, wrong sides together using a single crochet stitch. If you are using a  button-up shirt like mine, you can stuff through the button, otherwise leave a small section open along the edge and remember to stuff it before you finish closing. My favorite part about this, is probably the fact that you don't have to weave in a million ends, just stuff them in the pillow. :)

To make up for stealing his shirt I also made dad a coozie. :) There's not a pattern for this, I pulled a coozie out of our kitchen drawer and stitched the sleeve around it.

 
I'd also like to share some important "Do's" and "Don'ts" I learned using the afghan stitch:
DO: Customize this pattern, or create your own, I promise you can do it!
DO: Watch the Gege Crochet tutorials on YouTube, especially the one on color changes.
DO: Take lots of pictures of the process, I really wish I had taken more. 
DO: Stay organized when arranging the skeins, the order you use them is best.
DON'T: Try to travel with this. This is really not the project you work on in the car or at the doctor's office. Sometimes you'll have so many skeins attached at once you'll have more of a headache untying the knots than it's worth.
DON'T: Over embellish. Step away from the work OFTEN and eliminate the inclusion of truly unnecessary details that would clutter and take away from the design rather than add to it. (For example, I chose not to include a line for the driver's door as it would clutter the area around the logo.
DON'T: Be afraid to ask your family member for their opinion. My dad was especially helpful on this one. He works for the company and was really helpful for advice on getting the correct proportions when designing the pattern, and determining which of the embellishments were unnecessary. (I tried this wacky single crochet thing on the boom and he let me know it looked like a hot mess. Trust me--he was right!)
DON'T: Design the pattern in one sitting. Step away from it often to get an overall perspective and clear your head after a while. This is more important than you realize. Had I not stepped away from this pattern and done some dishes, I would have made a truck with very tiny wheels. It's amazing the things you'll miss if you spend too long staring at the same thing without taking a break.

I really hope you enjoy this pattern and it inspires you to make your own! :)

~That Farm Girl Teacher

Merry Christmas

I know, I haven't made good on my promises, but I will be making up for it soon, I ..er.. promise :D Between wedding planning, work, and school, I haven't had a ton of free time, and most of what I do have goes towards actually crafting...instead of blogging about crafting. Hopefully I will work my schedule out better, but for now, let me show you what I've been working on.

From left to right. Horses: Tux, Jose, Drew Piney. Dogs: Mandy Cole. Standing people: My dad, Randy, and sister, Miranda. Sitting people: Me, my mom, Tammy. For the story of our annual family Christmas photo, click here.

By the way, I know it's past Christmas, but Santa brought the Wooten household the flu for Christmas and we're just running behind in general. :)

Every year for Christmas I give the children in my family handmade gifts. (To see last year's, click here.) This year, I decided to use some new skills I learned with the afghan crochet stitch (sometimes called Tunisian crochet) to make personalized pillows for each of them. I was really inspired by an amazing Mario afghan crocheted by the INCREDIBLE Gege over at GegeCrochet. (Link: here, seriously, go check it out, it's amazing!!!) She also has wonderful tutorials on her YouTube profile I recommend if you are new to this technique, I used her videos myself when I was learning. All of these patterns were created by me, I'll talk a little bit about the process I use to create them here, and again when I 'officially' share these patterns. I'm still working on how to transfer them from paper into a digital format, and will be putting them on Craftsy and Ravelry as soon as I'm finished.

This was the first one I made for my cousin, Tiffany. The original horse design actually came from a different pattern I made for a laptop case for my sister. The coloring is designed to actually look like her horse, Drawdy, and the pillow features a fringed forelock/mane, a metal ring for the halter, textured yarn in the heart, and hand spun yarn (by me) inside the horse's ears. The backing of the pillow is a cool faux leather fabric I've had laying around waiting on the perfect project.

 

The next pillow was designed for my cousin, Lawton. His father works as a lineman for the local electric company. He is all boy and loves everything about his dad's job. This bucket truck was designed with this in mind, featuring his dad's actual truck number and company logo. The pattern also has silver ribbon in the hubcaps, and variegated, hand spun yarn (Not by me, I purchased it about a year ago in North Carolina) for his name. The backing for this pillow is cut from one of his dad's old work shirts to add an even more personal touch. (I actually think he like this side more! haha)

To make up for cutting his shirt, I also made his dad this coozie from the sleeve. :) There's nothing special about it, basically I just dug a coozie we already had out of the drawer and sewed it into the sleeve.

Finally, this was for my cousin, Ethan. He has really been into Star Wars lately and his mom told me he draws Storm Troopers every time you turn around. This was actually the most challenging for me, mostly because I didn't have the slightest idea what a Storm Trooper actually looked like. After several Google Image searches, I arrived at this pattern and I think it's pretty close. The additional back stitching around the mouth (do they have mouths?) is what really bring it together. The pillow also has silver ribbon stitches to imitate stars and textured yarn for his name and the border. The backing of this one is a fleece fabric with realistic-looking images of the Solar System. I forgot to take a photo of the back before wrapping it though. :(

I still have two more pillows and a laptop case I'm working on that use similar techniques. When I share each of the patterns I'll talk a little more about what went into each of them. These shots are of the patterns I used to make them. As you can see, I taped grid paper together to design them and used crayons to color things in and get a better overall idea of how each would look. You may also notice that some things changed between the first design and the final product.

Handspun Yarn Projects

I have been very busy crocheting, knitting, and knooking over the last few days and I can't wait to show you what I've been creating!

First, I want to show you a cowl I crocheted from a Wool Ease Lion Brand Thick & Quick. I know that I said handspun yarn, but I was walking through Michael's and this Super Bulky yarn caught my eye!

 It is mostly cream with small amounts of brown and black fiber added in. The pattern is very simple, just chain the length you want (mine might be 35 sts?) and alternate rows of single/double crochet.

 The beautiful wooden button was also a Michael's purchase. It doesn't actually serve a purpose though, it's just for looks. :)

And now on to the actual handspun yarns! The following yarn was spun from this roving of alpaca fiber that was given to me. I spun it into singles but was limited to around 100 yards of yarn.

 I have been considering embracing knitting more as it tends to use less yardage than crocheting. This seemed like the perfect opportunity!


This knitted headband pattern came from Cedar Box Knits. She calls it a Wavy Moss headband. It took about two hours to complete and uses a provisional cast on to prevent large seam lines. The pattern includes instructions for a headband, a beanie, and a slouchy hat.


The photo taken by the designer showed the headband worn this way, I call it hippie-style. I like it a lot when those darn straight-haired people wear it, but I'm still not sure if I like it with my curly hair....


One of the main reasons I'm often attracted to knit patterns is because you can create cabled looks, which I love! While I do know how to knit I don't do it very often as I've always found crocheting simpler. This was my first experience knitting cables and because I only own one pair of knitting needles, I totally used a wooden skewer in place of the cable needle! lol


  Like I said, they jury is still out on whether or not I like the hippie-style look, so when I actually wore this headband, I wore it with a pony tail. I think it can also be used as an ear warmer when it's cold outside.

I had a small amount of yarn left over and I wanted to make one more small project for the very kind lady that gave me the fiber. She is an expert when it comes to fiber and the animals that grow fiber. She's been wanting a sheep, but doesn't want to mix them with their goats. So....

  I made this adorable sheep coaster for her! The pattern is designed by Monika Mrozkova. The white portions are some leftover acrylic yarn, the mouth is embroidery thread, and the eyes are two leftover gray beads I happened to have.

Since she can't have the sheep she's been wanting, I thought this coaster would be a cute alternative. :) I should have blocked the legs, but I think it's very cute!

The last is a two ply yarn I spun from wool I bought from The Woolery. I considered dying it but I kind of liked the natural cream color and left it.

I used about two of these balls to crochet a hat I hope to wear when we vacation in North Carolina this December. This is the beanie pattern that accompanied the Wavy Moss headband pattern from Cedar Box Knits.

It looks knitted, right? Actually, it's knooked! I bought a Knook Beginner Kit a while ago but never made anything from it. This pattern required a circular knitting needle but as I don't often knit, I didn't have one. The knook replaces that!

The cabled portion of the beanie was made first, and wasn't as difficult as I was expecting using the knook. Three rows on each side of the cabled section are done in seed stitch. The whole upper portion is supposed to be seed stitch, but I got very frustrated with it very quickly and made it in stockinette stitch instead.

The decreases aren't as gentle as I'd been hoping, possibly because I didn't use seed stitch like the pattern said to. I think I also started decreasing too early and it's a little more shallow than I wanted, but I think it will still be warm when we visit North Carolina.

I really do love the cables, and I like the small amounts of variation in the size of the yarn. It really adds to the character of the piece. :)





 I know it seems as though I'm preparing for cold weather and I don't want you to get the wrong impression, this is Florida and the high today is somewhere in the 90's! I threw on the long sleeve shirt so you guys could get an idea of how it would look but Mom thought the rest of the outfit was hilarious....shorts and flip flops!

P.S. Check out the gigantic honeysuckle vine behind me! It smells wonderful early in the morning! :)

~Farm Girl Teacher

It has arrived!

Mom captured this on her phone. :)

My brand-spanking new spinning wheel finally arrived! Well actually it arrived over a week ago but I've had so much fun playing with it that I haven't had much time to blog. :)

I've spun so much I think I've now discovered calf muscles I wasn't previously aware of!

I know spinning isn't exactly a common hobby, (I can't tell you how many times I've started gabbing with a fellow 'spinner' only to realize they meant the exercise bike!) but you'd be surprised by the amount of fiber spinners in my area! I feel like I'm part of some secret, underground group of spinners! :D

I actually discovered spinning after visiting a guild meeting nearby with my crochet work. I was entranced as I watched the men and women around me turn bags of animal hair into beautiful handmade yarns. I had to learn to do it myself!

If you're not interested in spinning jargon/details on the wheel, scroll down to the photos of the yarn. :)

I began spinning using an Ashford drop spindle for a couple of reasons: to make sure I really enjoyed spinning, and because I worked at Taco Bell and a spinning wheel was way out of my budget.

But...now that I have a real honest-to-goodness job, I finally decided to purchase a real, honest-to-goodness spinning wheel! :D Oh yeah!

I did tons of research prior to making my purchase and I took every opportunity possible to use other people's wheels in order to decide what my 'must haves' were. Here is the list I used when shopping. The list actually started much shorter however I kept adding things in order to help narrow down my options.
- reasonably priced, but not a beginner's wheel, I wanted it to grow with me

Photo courtesy of The Woolery

- reputable brand
- portable, or a small footprint
- castle-type wheel
- double treadle
- center orifice
- double band drive w/ optional Scotch tension
- built-in Lazy Kate 
- finished wood

It wasn't easy but I finally narrowed it down to a Kromski Minstrel. This wheel met all my 'must haves' PLUS it was gorgeous AND it wasn't over-the-moon expensive.

The wheel came in a number of color options, but I really liked the lighter option; I think it's traditional-looking yet fresh.  The Kromski brand is also known for having exceptional quality wheels. All wheels are designed and produced by a small family business in Poland.

So far I have REALLY enjoyed using it, but I'm not going to lie, the first few days were not fun! Like I said, I didn't technically purchase a 'beginner wheel' although it is advertised as being 'beginner friendly.' There was certainly a bit of a learning curve involved. Nearly all of my initial trouble was because of tension issues. In the past, every time I sat down at a wheel, the person who actually owned it had already set the tension and was sitting right there assisting me. After watching numerous YouTube videos (specifically, Expertly Dyed, she has the same wheel as me), I realized that it was important that I adjust the tension SLIGHTLY each time. I was also making it placing WAY to much tension on the drive band and actually wound up snapping it before it was all said and done. {Legit spinners should look away now, you're about to cringe!} I didn't want to put a brand new drive-band on the wheel seeing as how I was still having major issues, so I grabbed a bit of cotton yarn, measured it out, threw it on, and haven't looked back! :D

Besides tension issues, I couldn't for the life of me get the wheel to take-up properly, resulting in severely over spun yarn. I wound up having to adjust about half-a-dozen things in order to fix it.  First, I was SUPER excited to get my wheel and didn't realize that I was treadling about a hundred miles an hour. (Seriously, I was out of breath after about ten minutes!) My focus for the next few days was seeing how slow I could go and still keep the wheel moving. After slowing my treadling I also readjusted my whorls. Because it's a double-band drive, the bobbin whorl almost always has to be smaller than the flyer whorl. I made sure that the flyer whorl was as large as possible, and the bobbin whorl was as small as possible. So far this has worked fine since then, although I have stepped the flyer whorl down a size as I've improved. Besides this, I realized after a while that I was so nervous I wasn't actually releasing the spun fiber so it could move onto the bobbin. Hehe, whoops!

Well, let's get down to business! Check out the yarn I've spun so far...

This was the first yarn I spun. It began as a beautiful hand painted wool fiber purchased from a local spinner and alpaca breeder. Check out her shop, Woodland Hills Alpacas on Etsy.

The beautiful shades of reds, oranges, and a hint of brown initially attracted me to the fiber, and I loved how it turned out! With one exception...it truly is horribly overspun! Its hard to tell on the paper towel tube I transferred it onto, however after I set the twist and released the tension it curled up left and right! lol

Btw, the paper towel tube is because I was waiting on my Niddy Noddy but need to free up a bobbin. :)

The next photo is of some beautiful Alpaca fiber given to me from a fellow spinner. She is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to fiber! I typically stay out of the cleaning/prep process when it comes to fiber and purchase mine ready-to-go, but she is awesome at cleaning an carding out batts! I also go to her for all my goat/sheep related questions. (Our sheep are hair sheep so their fiber is unsuitable for spinning.)

I have already spun this into singles and am working on a small knitting project with it. Hopefully, photos will follow soon.

 This is another batt of alpaca fiber, cleaned and gifted to me from the same wonderful lady. :) This is my current project. It's a kind of deep auburn color (sorry, I don't know the actual color names when it comes to alpacas) but it's spinning out a bit darker and is really beautiful color! One of the things I like about the batts she's given me is that there's little tufts of white fiber in there here and there. It's really beautiful and makes me think of the animal that so kindly donated their hair to us. Unfortunately, the fiber isn't coming out as smooth as possible, I would welcome any tips!

And finally, this is a two-ply I spun from some wool roving. I considered dying it but I kind of like the natural cream color...

Thanks for sticking with me til the end of this post!

~Farm Girl Teacher