Occassionally,
bunny/fiber people ask me about spinning and spinning wheels
and it occurred to me I should add this information to the site.
I use
a Castle style Lendrum Spinning Wheel (got it used from Woodland Woolworks
in Carlton Oregon http://www.woodlandwoolworks.com/).
It is a refurbished, single peddle, standard ratio wheel. I am not sure
how it compares to other wheels, since it's the only one I've used. For
slippery bunny wool, a wheel needs to spin smoothly with no pull or tugs
on the fibers your are spinning... so a smooth consistant tension.
I had signed up for a spinning class at the OSU craft center, but the
class was cancelled. The teacher called all the students and offered to
teach them individually by the hour if interested. Her name is Bonnie
Wedekin. Her website is: http://www.proaxis.com/~bonnie/SpinWeave/index.htm
I began spinning sheep's wool since it's easier, then ventured into more challenging fibers. I like combining cashmere (my favorite ever), alpaca wool, soy silk fiber (that I ordered by phone from Fiber Nooks & Crannys in Corvallis Oregon http://www.fncyarn.com/ ... I like it better than real silk because it has a staple that is the same length as the angora fiber), and very fine sheeps wool like cormo, or corridale and merino.
Rose Hat
Yarns: The gray part is navajo-plied satin angora mixed with a tiny bit of black alpaca. The brown part is my two-ply alpaca/angora thread doubled up. I crocheted the rose motif -It was lots-o-fun!
Bias knit stole.
The thread was spun from light brown alpaca carded with white angora (the skein is pictured further down). It took me about 30 hours to spin and a very very long time to knit because it was so tedious that I never got around to it, but it's finally done and I use it as a scarf all the time!
Bias knit experimental scarf.
I spun wool from my two Satin Angoras "The Baron" and "Sophie" and made a fluffy scarf with the yarn to see how satin wool held up to the abuses of scarfdom. I am very impressed because it is absolutely not scratchy on my skin, has not felted, and is extremely fluffy.
Fisherman's rib baby hat.
I knit this hat out of the yarn I spun from white angora and soysilk (pictured further down). It was for a very small baby and I wanted to make it really stretchy and thick, so I used the "fisherman's rib" stitch.
Same as above :)
...Except the gray yarn was spun from "Gunther" wool.
Baby socks.
I knit a few pairs of these puppies with different combinations of yarns. This pair was made from white angora/soysilk with "Gunther" yarn for the trim ( light gray). The pattern I used is from:
Baby helmet.
I doubled up the white angora/soysilk yarn to knit this hat. The pattern is here:
www.geocities.com/lindaslists/tthelmet.htm
...but there were some parts to it where the pattern definetly didn't make any sense and I had to wing it.
Another baby hat.
I used yarn spun from "Valentino" and "The Baron's" wool for this hat, and the white ribbing is knit from angora/soysilk yarn.
Mittens
from my Ruby-Eyed-Whites:
"Bianca" and "Jubal"
100% Angora Rabbit Wool
Leg
warmers from my Sables:
"Josephine"
and "Remmington"
100% Angora Rabbit Wool
(Bianca & BunnyBunny) with accents of
Angora and Silk
with light brown alpaca wool.
White Angora Rabbit / Soysilk Blend Thread
Two-Ply Spun
White Angora Rabbit / Light Brown Alpaca
Wool Blend Thread
For Lace Work Shawl
