Tag: textured fiber

Spinning Inspiration: Textured Fiber for Unique Handspun Yarn

A close-up of a spinning wheel bobbin wrapped with colorful yarn, mostly black with pink, green, and yellow strands. The bobbin is bright blue with a decorative end, and the spinning wheel sits on a wooden floor.

The time has come to spin the textured batts and textured rovings from my previous posts for your spinning inspiration.

I make these posts for two reasons: to challenge myself, and ultimately, to give spinning inspiration to you, hand-spinners out there. We all get stuck in a rut; hopefully, I can get you out of it, even if this style of spinning isn’t your cup of tea.

My Journey to Spin (and love!) Textured Fiber

Messy. Chaotic. A vomit of color. If you prefer to spin top, chunky textured fibers and batts are probably not for you. Or is it? Let me show you what I have done recently with the handmade chunky batts and textured rovings I made in previous YouTube videos.

When I started spinning, I was drawn to the textured art batts that push the envelope. Spinners adding bits of fiber like silk, wool locks, re-purposing pieces of handspun yarn, and spinning these into yarn with the addition of objects like beads or artificial flowers – these are the handspun yarns that inspired me to learning to spin. I wanted to make art with fiber. Not to say all handspun isn’t art – because it is. I mean, I really wanted to make avant-garde yarn that you could wear or hang as artwork; that was my goal.

But as my knitting evolved, so did my spinning. I still love a funky art batt, but in a more toned-down way: less bulky yarns and more worsted-weight or thinner.

Three rolls of colorful, fluffy carded wool batts rest on a wooden surface. The wool blends vibrant shades of pink, blue, green, black, and purple in a soft, textured swirl, ready for spinning.

Above: three small batts I blended on my drum carder using leftover hand-dyed wool from other projects, with the addition of angora and silk, Angelina, and other fibers.

Below: Part One of spinning the textured fiber from past videos.

For Your Spinning Inspiration: Textured Fiber Part 1 & 2

Spinning the Textured Batts on my E-Spinner

I have two methods when spinning batts: ripping off chunks and spinning straight off the batt. I preferred spinning straight off the batt for these smallish batts. As they had no rhyme or reason color-wise, spinning off the batt meant I could control how much of each color could be spun at a time.

A person spins vibrant pink and purple wool into yarn using an electric spinning wheel on a wooden floor. The wool is draped around their arm, and they are holding the fibers where they are fed into the machine, which winds the yarn onto a purple bobbin.

Spinning these types of batts is never boring. If you want to watch color shift and develop before your eyes, these fun textured batts are truly satisfying. I don’t advocate you always spin this way (unless you want to – believe it or not, I don’t always!), but it is a great way to let your creativity run free and reset your brain for a more civilized spinning sesh. 🙂

Next: Tackling the Textured Roving

The other projects I was working on simultaneously to help kick your spinning inspiration in high gear is textured roving blended on my hackle. I had already spun the light green roving from my original how to use a hackle video, but could not find a suitable fiber to spin with it in my stash.

So I decided to do a smooth hackle blend for comparison with the textured roving, and spin them both together (with Mr. Peanut’s help, it seems).

A person uses a wool comb to blend green and blue fibers at a table. A cream-colored cat lies nearby, sniffing the wool, with various crafting tools and supplies scattered in the background.

Although I used similar, almost identical fibers & colors, the contrast of a smooth blend vs. a side-by-side chunky blend was fascinating. The smooth blend was nearly a homogeneous color. I created a 3-ply yarn by plying these two fibers spun as separate singles with a bamboo singles. I found some bamboo roving in my stash that I had dyed similar colors.

A person with glasses and dark hair holds up a spool of blue and green variegated yarn in one hand and a matching ball of fiber in the other. They sit at a table in a brightly lit craft room with supplies and colorful materials around them. The photo was taken in part to compare two different blends of wool fiber on a hackle for spinning inspiration.

Above: comparison between the original textured hackle fiber, blended side-by-side, and the smooth, evenly blended hackle roving.

You can watch Part Two below to see the final created yarns.

The video also featured the spruce green textured fiber, which I made into a 3-ply by dividing this bobbin into two and plying it with some spruce-colored Merino top that I also dyed.

This particular yarn is the epitome of the textured yarn I strive to create. Soft, squishy with lots of interesting inclusions with bits of sari silk, Angelina, angora and other colors of bits of wool roving.

I adored the finished yarn despite the singles reminding me of an artificial Christmas tree! The 3-ply yarn would look great paired with a solid color or on its own, giving me lots of options for a unique finished project. As I always say, never judge a handspun yarn until it’s finished. 😉

A person with glasses and dark hair holds up a large spool of multicolored yarn in a well-lit, cozy craft room filled with supplies and tools. They wear a smartwatch and a sleeveless gray top, focusing on the yarn.

This was a large project for me, spanning two months, during which I dyed and blended most of the fiber from scratch or pulled from my stash from previously hand-dyed projects. It definitely was wearing on both my body and attention span. But it is also so rewarding to push myself to create yarn outside of just spinning from straight top or raw combed fiber in colors that I am comfortable with.

I hope my experimenting helps you with your creativity and provides you with lots of spinning inspiration. 🙂

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Master the Art of Fiber Blending with a Hackle

A wooden blending board with metal rods holds various colored fibers, including green, purple, and white, clamped to a table. The background shows baskets, a clear plastic storage box, and art on the walls.
A person wearing a smartwatch sits at a wooden table, using a blending hackle to blend colorful fibers. Their hands are visible near the fibers, which are a mix of green, purple, blue, and shiny strands, all attached to metal spikes of the tool.

“Sandwiching” Fibers on a Hackle for Fiber Blending

When I was very young and learning to read, my favorite book was called “The Biggest Sandwich Ever,” in which a man enters a park and starts assembling a gigantic sandwich with everything you could ever imagine on it. I loved how this book rhymed, but most of all, I loved all the different types of food that were piled onto this humongous sandwich.

It’s no surprise that, as an adult, I’ve become a total foodie who loves cuisine from all over the world. I find this food theme even enters my jewelry and fiber arts endeavours, with many of my projects referring to or named after food. Everything reminds me of food! 🙂

I have nicknamed this fiber blending technique with a hackle “sandwiching” because I layer many different types of fibers for spinning on top of each other, and repeat the process, “sandwiching” the fibers together before pulling them off with a diz.

A person holds multicolored, shiny fiber near a wooden blending board with metal pins. More fiber is spread across the board’s pins. The background shows a blurred room with art, books, and weaving tools. Light softly enters from the left.

Above: a mixture of Merino, Silk, Angora, and Angelina fibers forms this mini roving, pulled off my hackle with a diz and ready for some fun hand spinning!

Why Blended Textured Fibers

I love playing with color and creating unique handspun yarn. I get satisfaction in watching all the colors come together when spinning or plying yarn. I thought that learning to dye fiber would be enough, but fiber blending has been a wonderful addition to my spinning fiber potential.

I know some people dislike texture in their yarn, and you can still do this sandwiching fiber blending technique with just wool top of different colors to create a uniquely blended top, colorwise. Life’s too short for spinning boring fiber. 😉

Another reason for fiber blending is to create different strengths or structure in your yarn. Blending dyed nylon for a stronger sock yarn, for example, or adding in bamboo or cotton for its absorbent or anti-microbial properties. Adding in a luxury fiber, such as silk, to your project is always divine!

For me, textured fiber blending is all about the uniqueness of my handspun. The unpredictability and unreplicability of the fiber are what make it enjoyable and motivating to spin. Although all handspun yarn is art yarn, spinning textured blended fiber embodies that definition in its entirety.

Hackle vs. Drum Carder

You can achieve similar results with a drum carder. With a drum carder, you will pull off a batt, whereas a hackle is used to create roving. I do find that the fibers on a drum carder can blend more effectively than on a hackle. I have a trick to this that I will share in an upcoming video & post, because when I am making textured fiber for spinning, I don’t want the fiber to be overly blended.

Watch: Sandwich Fiber Blending on a Hackle

Tips for Successful Fiber Blending on a Hackle

Don’t Overload the Hackle

It’s tempting to fill a hackle as full as possible, but from my experience, all this does is compact the fibers, making it harder to pull off with the diz. This results in a significant amount of leftover fiber, which you will need to either re-run through the hackle or remove in what I refer to as a “mini-batt” (demonstrated in the video). Because I want to preserve the chunky blending and have every roving match, I don’t run it back through the hackle.

Pull Roving with a Firm but Gentle Pressure

You will want to be firm and steady when pulling the fiber through the diz, BUT not aggressively. Pulling too hard only results in the fiber breaking on the roving prematurely. It also feels like you are fighting the fiber; much more resistance is created, and thus it becomes harder to pull. Not to mention this is very hard on the body.

In the video, you will see me alternate hands while pulling off the roving. Usually, I would guide the diz with one hand and pull with the other, but I have a bad shoulder and neck issues from being hit by a car years ago, so I find the repetitive motion of fiber prep and spinning exacerbates that injury.

Slow and steady is always the way to go when pulling a roving.

Take breaks when needed.

I am guilty of getting so into my hackle blending that I don’t take adequate breaks, resulting in some serious neck, shoulder, and back pain. It’s essential to find balance in tasks that require repetitive motion to keep them enjoyable; otherwise, you may wind up with repetitive strain injury and needing to visit the massage therapist or physiotherapist more often, or even worse, have to quit altogether.

Should you use a Hackle for Fiber Blending

Overall, a hackle is a versatile and generally affordable tool for blending fiber for spinning. I use it the most in my studio, even more so than my drum carder or my St. Blaise combs. It’s a compact, useful tool that can be easily stored when not in use, unlike a drum carder.

See my other hackle post for general hackle use tips, and be sure to check out my YouTube Channel for more spinning and fiber inspiration.

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