adventures in spinning (part 1?)

(the images in this post will probably look better on desktop than mobile)

It probably isn't surprising due to some combination of my textiles page and the way that I'm hand-writing this site in Vim, but I love doing things Fully From Scratch. and, I love textiles: thus, I yearn deeply to make my own cloth. I'm limited greatly in doing this by (1) lack of access to traditional fiber sources like sheep and land to grow flax on and (2) lack of space in my apartment for cloth-making tools like a loom. but, I can spin! so I'm learning to spin.

day one

Picture this: I'm on my lunch break; I'm working from home. I woke up at 2 am the night before and spent four hours reading about how to raise your own silkworms and spin silk from their cocoons. Anyway, I use this tutorial to make a CD spindle covered in duct tape.

My first attempts are lumpy and thick and I have to watch a few videos about the park and draft method before I manage to do anything consistent: my hubris insists that I try immediately to draft while the spindle is spinning and skip the park, but my experience suggests that I'm still a long way from that.

At this point I'm just using some wool roving I have from a needle felting kit I got as a gift from a relative several years ago. But I'm sitting on a call with a few friends, showing off my shiny new DIY spindle while brushing my cat and: what if?

The cat hair yarn is thick and the rougher outer coat hairs poke out and make it scratchy. Spinning it leaves my fingers greasy and everything smells unpleasantly of cat; it makes me feel like a god.

That evening, I run to the hardware store and buy some dowels, hooks, and dog slicker brushes for hand carding.

day two

My second spindle is lighter than the CD spindle and a much more manageable size: it's a hardware store dowel with oven-bake polymer clay for a whorl. I painted it to make it aesthetic.

I try my hand at plying two single spun threads together, to mixed success.

day three

I'm starting to get the hang of spinning finer threads, but I want to push it even further.

day four (that's today)

My fourth spindle is a hardware store dowel, whittled down slightly so the bottom end is tapered narrower. The whorl is the rubber I use to make stamps with my linocut tools; it's still not light enough, I think, or I don't have the right fibers, or I'm not skilled enough yet to make the delicate thread I really want to make. But, it's getting there.

I attempt the cat yarn again, this time carding it between the two dog brushes beforehand. It's thin enough to embroider with.

The range of responses to my cat yarn — all from cat owners — has been interesting. Some folks gut-respond with disgust, others are excited at the idea of a sweater made with their beloved pet's soft coat. A couple people have tried needle-felting cat fur before, and this isn't so different.

I'm somewhere in between, I think. The way the fur feels on my fingers as I spin is strange, and you can tell it's cat fur and not sheep wool or cotton from the texture of it even when it's two-ply and embroidered. It doesn't make me feel like, connected to my cat or anything like that, but it's nice to have a convenient and consistent source of fiber for practicing with (and I think it's significantly less gross than at-home silk production, and I really want to try that one day). I tell my friends and family with cats that I'm not going to ... request their cat brushings, but also if they hand me a bag of it I will spin with it. I think it would be funny to make a whole garment of pet fur and never be able to wear it out for risk of giving strangers allergic reactions.

Anyway, very excited about this whole venture! Eventually I will hand-spin enough of something to make a whole garment with it (although I'll also need to either refresh my knitting skills or get some kind of loom to do that).