How does spinning wheel work

On single drive wheels the bobbin has a separate brake to control its speed. The fiber is twisted as the flyer rotates and the spinner holds the yarn.

One revolution of the flyer puts one twist into the yarn. The longer the yarn is held before letting it wind onto the bobbin, the more twist it will receive. This type of wheel has one drive band around the flyer wheel and the flyer whorl. There is usually a separate brake on the bobbin using an adjustable brake band or a tension wire The Scotch Tension brake system , for the purpose of regulating the speed by which the yarn winds onto the bobbin.

When spinning, a brake is used to hold the bobbin still while the flyer continues to rotate. Increased tension on the brake will cause the yarn to pull from your hands and to wind quickly onto the bobbin. Single drive wheels are the best choice for beginning handspinners.

The Scotch Tension brake system is easier for beginners to operate and understand. The tension on the flyer and bobbin can be set at separate speeds, which provides numerous adjustment levels for the beginner. You want the grommet to fit snugly in the center of the CDs. This can be a little frustrating since it's a tight fit, but once you've pulled the edges of the grommet up, it should be good to go.

Slide the dowel into the center of the grommet. As long as you've judged the sizes correctly you should be finished making your drop spindle. If it doesn't quite fit, wrap the dowel with electrical tape until the dowel and CDs slip on and fit tightly. Prepare your roving. For a beginning spinner, one piece of roving is going to be too big. Break that piece down into sections that are about 12 inches Carefully split your roving down the middle to form two strips instead of one.

This will make spinning easier if you're just beginning. Tie on your leader. Your leader is a piece of yarn about 18 inches Put the yarn over the whorl and loop it around the shaft underneath. Put it back over the whorl and secure the end to the hook. Spin the fibers. Letting the spindle hang beneath your hand, suspended by the leader, take the spindle in your right hand and the leader in your left hand.

Spin the drop spindle from the dowel or shaft in a clockwise direction. Repeat this process in the same direction until the leader begins to take in the twist. You'll leave a fluff of fiber at the end so you can join on more fiber. It's a good idea to practice making the spindle rotate, so that you get a feel for the direction you'll be spinning the drop spindle to make the yarn.

Wind on new fiber. Keeping tension on your spun yarn, allow the twist to run into the newly drafted fiber. Keep repeating this process and check that there is enough twist before you move on. When the yarn is long enough that the spindle almost touches the ground, unhook it and wrap it around the base of the spindle next to the whorl. This is called a single. You'll want to leave enough yarn unwound so that you can slip it back on the book with a couple of inches to spare.

If you find that the yarn is pulling apart or too slack, spin your spindle again to store more of the twist. Join more fiber. Overlap the wool a few inches of the fluff of drafted fibers, so that you can catch and twist more onto the leader. Allow the twist to run into the joined fibers, adding more twist by spinning the spindle, because you want to make sure that your join is secure. To test the join, give the spindle another twist and bring your right hand back to where the left hand holds the yarn.

Move your left hand back about three inches, as you pull and draft out more fibers of wool and allow the spindle to turn a few times. Release the yarn with your right hand and left the twist move up into the fibers as you did previously. Now, gently pull more fibers from the fiber mass by pulling back with your left hand, and allowing the twist to run into the drafted fibers.

Part 4. Draft the wool. This is when you pull fibers from material to be spun and thin them down to form the size of the yarn you want to spin. If you draft more fibers, your yarn will be thicker; less fibers and it will be thinner. If your fiber is in a long, continuous narrow strip, this is the form of fiber processing called roving. If it's in a wide, rolled-up bundle that unrolls into a wide rectangle, that is the form of fiber processing called a batt.

Pick a strip about 12 inches Hold the strip of fiber in one hand doesn't matter which. Pull a few fibers from one end of your strip with your other hand. Drafting things the fiber down the the desired thickness for your spun yarn. The spinning process will twist the fibers, which also thin them down. As you get better at drafting and spinning, you'll find it easier to judge the size of your drafts.

Set up the leader on your spinning wheel. The leader is a piece of yarn that has previously been spun and can be attached to the shaft of your bobbin. Cut a piece of yarn about 36 inches Make sure that you tie it snugly.

Pull the leader through the orifice on your spinning wheel. Once you do this you're ready to begin the actual spinning! If you're just starting to spin, it's a good idea to practice spinning just with the leader so you get a feel for how the spinning wheel works, how to start spinning the wheel just with the treadles. Place your fiber alongside the leader.

You will want to overlap them for about four to six inches. You'll hold the bundle of fiber in one hand the fiber hand , and the leader and fiber in the other hand this is the drafting hand. Begin treadling. You want to make sure that the wheel is going in a clockwise motion. This will create the "Z" twist in your single strand of spun yarn. Allow the leader and the fiber to twist together, holding them for a moment while they twist, so that they are secure.

Make sure you let the wheel take up the fiber as you draft more fiber. Begin to spin. Overlap un-spun and spun fiber, holding it with your non-dominant hand and turn the wheel clockwise.

This will cause the fiber to twist, which is what turns the fiber into yarn. Make sure that your drafting hand is between the fiber hand and orifice of your spinning wheel. You don't, however, have to keep your hands close to the orifice as you spin. Always make sure to spin the wheel in a clockwise manner. Draft more wool onto the leader. You will want to slide your drafting hand towards the bundle of fiber to draft more fiber to be spun. It's best when you're just starting to stop spinning, draft the fiber, and then spin, then stop and draft again.

As you grow more comfortable, it will turn into one continuous motion. Take care that you don't allow the twist to travel to the fiber in your fiber hand.

Your non-dominant hand should be closest to the wheel and the dominant hand closer to you. Unwind your yarn and make into a skein. You will do this once the spindle is full. Wrap around your hand and elbow, much like winding cord and tie at intervals with acrylic yarn. This is when you might use the implement known as the "niddy-noddy. This will create a large loop in a small amount of space, which you'll then tie in sections and remove by sliding it off one shoulder of the niddy.

Set the twist. You'll do this by soaking the skein in hot water and hanging it to dry. You can use a plastic hanger, or hang it over a drying rack. Hang something heavy from the skein while drying. Part 5. Avoid yarn that gets tangled. Sometimes your yarn gets tangled between the bobbin and the flyer.

Basically this means that your treadling isn't even which happens a lot with first time spinners! Break off the yarn, hook it back up, and start over again. Empty the bobbin as you would normally and start fresh. Find your lost end. Sometimes when you're spinning you lose the end. Don't fret! Roll your bobbin around a few times. Often the end is under the last hook that it was over.

Try using a piece of tape to see if you can pull up the loose end. This solution works about half the time. Otherwise, pick the most likely end and pull enough yarn for a new leader so you can start again. Do something about your lumpy thread. If your yarn is lumpy and bumpy it means that you aren't spinning it consistently. You might be pulling out too much fiber. If so, what you need to work on is getting into a consistent rhythm for spinning.

Trouble-shoot your handspinning. Some of the same problems happen in handspinning that happen with a spinning wheel. Sometimes there is a different way of fixing it as opposed to a spinning wheel for example, you don't have the flyer and the bobbin and so those types of tangles aren't typical.

Spindle gets away from you. If your spindle gets away from you and the twists runs up into the fiber mass, stop your spindle and untwist your fiber mass. Then, start the drafting again. This is a very common occurrence for beginners. If you have thick and thin spots in your yarn known as slubs , you can do something like keep them and have a novelty yarn good for knitting scarves. Otherwise you can remove the slubs by pinching the yarn with your hands on either side of the slub and untwisting until the fibers draft out a little.

Over-twisted yarn is a common beginner's problem. You can tell your yarn is over-twisted if you have a thick strand that feels very hard and dense. The strand can kink back on itself when you relax your tension. Now repeat this process after moving the drive belt onto the smaller size pulley. You should discover that you can produce much finer yarn on the smaller pulley. Because the flyer will be spinning much faster. This will produce much more twist, much faster, enabling you thereby, to use a smaller amount of fibre and thus produce a finer yarn.

Whereas, if the twist is added very slowly, you will find you have to feed more fibre into the yarn, otherwise it will break easily. Speed up the spin rate and you can hold back on the fibre, but still produce a fine yarn. If you have one or even two more pulleys on your flyer, then repeat this process for each in turn. If your spinning wheel is a super-duper, all-singing, all-dancing machine, you might even have two or more different sized grooves on the main wheel.

In this case , you should start off with the belt in the groove of the smallest sized, main wheel and repeat the whole of the above procedure for each groove.

In my personal opinion, whilst having this amount of adjustment may seem like a great idea when you are considering buying a wheel, remember that simple is better. We will definitely be scheduling a spinning wheel demonstration workshop this year, so you can come along and try out different wheels before buying one. This will be a terrific workshop, so stay tuned!

Now that you have so carefully and diligently pushed your spinning wheel through its paces, you should have a selection of yarn pieces on the table, that demonstrate what you and your machine are capable of producing together.

I hope you are pleased with the results. If your machine is bobbin-driven, you should use exactly the same procedure as outlined here and achieve the same results.

If the brake is on the flyer and not on the bobbin, then increasing the tension on the flyer will slow it down; this increases the differential in speed between the bobbin and the flyer and the yarn will wind onto the bobbin faster, just as with the flyer driven example. Either way, the more brake tension you apply, the less spin you will achieve and the faster the yarn is taken up. I hope this makes sense.

If you have a spinning wheel and you have never put it through its paces before, do it today! If you want to buy a wheel, then come along to the wheel initiation workshop.

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