This time, I'm the one who is spinning

After my adventures in reeling silk, it was time for me to do something with it. Namely, to spin it into usable thread. So I borrowed a spinning wheel, asked a lot of questions, got a ton of help, and got to work.

One thing that took me awhile to get my head around is that "throwing" is the process of twisting UNTWISTED filaments. So that is where I had to start, with throwing my silk. I have five videos which I narrated that pretty much explain the process. It's a much different operation than spinning wool, cotton, or combed silk.

Part 1 - The Wheel

This is what I learned about the wheel and how to make it work for my purposes.



Part 2 - Setting up the silk

Here I'm getting the silk set up and ready to spin.



Part 3 - Spinning

Actually spinning in this one!



Part 4 - Fixing a Broken Thread

I broke a lot of threads when I did this. Here is how I fixed that.



Part 5 - Wrapping the Bobbin

I've been told that if a new bump of silk is spun over an old bump that the new silk will cut into the old bump, making it tangle and become impossible to get back off the bobbin. Wrapping the bobbin prevents this.



I made two bobbins of silk from the four small spools that I had from reeling.
The next step in the process is to take the two bobbins of twisted thread and twist them in the opposite direction into one thread. Then I think it's called yarn.