A homemade spinning wheel, impressive

In the last few months I got a homemade spinning wheel. This has been a game changer for my spinning plans. Spinning with a top drop spindle whorl is about doing something positive with your hands and creating a lovely yarn from various fleece. It is a relaxing rewarding pastime and the results are always good. Visit our shop for a unique drop spindle whorl.

Table of Contents

How my homemade spinning wheel has changed my spinning, the positives

The homemade spinning wheel enables me to spin my roving quicker than a drop spindle whorl.
Plying is very quick and easy on the spinning wheel.
I have learned a lot about thickness and consistantance.
I am actually getting in some exercise treadling the wheel.
it is addictive as you get to see progress quickly.

The negatives about a homemade spinning wheel

These are not total negative points, they are points which I, as a beginner find difficult. No doubt as I use my homemade spinning wheel more these points will change to positives.

Learning how to spin on the wheel is frustrating if you are teaching yourself
Understanding what does what and how it does it is a bit of hit and miss to start with as I had not idea until i tried it.
The speed as which it works means I was trying very hard, to keep up with it, and I kept losing my yarn on the bobbin.
I missed the slow relaxing spinning with a top spindle whorl.

What I did to learn how to use my homemade spinning wheel

After failing to keep up with the spinning wheel speed to spin single ply, I found plying was perfect to learn how to treadle and feed the two seperate single ply.
Plying two single yarns meant I only had to watch them twist, not feed, pull, and control the roving.
Joining the yarn was another tricky event as I made large slubs due to not controlling it very well, after a lot of frustrating re-starts and un doing I found that by staggering the joining of the yarns I got a much better twist and hold. A number of times I thought I had joined the yarns after a break or just to join in another ball was well done only to find it come apart and cause quite a lot of the twist to come out.
I began to pay attention to how it all worked together. My husband knows nothing about spinning itself but knows a lot about how the wheel works. He explained about speeds and weights and friction. These things help in controlling what happens on the spinning wheel.
My homemade spinning wheel has three speed settings as a simple string “brake” which goes over the bobbin to allow it to wind the spun yarn onto the bobbin.
I set the wheel onto the slowest speed. Tested the friction on my bobbin by making it very loose and tightening it slowly until the yarn started to wind through and onto the bobbin.
I practised treadling slowly and soon got into a nice rhythm, it took a bit longer to keep that motion when I tried spinning one ply from roving.

My Spinning plans with my top drop spindle whorls and homemade spinning wheel

Being a beginner my venture into spinning has been slow but very enjoyable. My goal is to try as many different fleece types and see what it is like to handle, spin and wash.
But if one does that, what do you do with all the beautiful spun yarn. Well, that it a question with a lot of different possibilities but for me I want to make something I can use. I have not yet decided what I will make as I only have 100g of raw roving for each type of fleece.
I am able to spin the 100g wool up to have a 2ply ball of yarn weighing in at 98 grams, using only top whorls to single and ply.
On my spinning wheel my results have been very varied as I have not yet managed to spin evenly and to the same thickness. Spinning wheel 2ply yard from 100g raw roving has been anywhere from 92 grams to 97 grams. My posts cover some of the roving/fleece I have spun and more will follow.

Newly acquired, lovely Alpaca roving in fantastic colours from Emma Burton at Prospect Alpacas

How to make a homemade spinning wheel

There are a few good plans and ideas for wheels on the Internet. Some people use bicycle wheels, others go to a lot of trouble to make beautiful wheels from solid woods. Look at them all. Pinterest also has a lot of good examples.
Watch Youtube videos on unboxing of new spinning wheels and also making a wheel from scratch. Sadly no channel, company or person is going to impart every bit of knowledge they have gleaned through building one for themselves, but most have very useful comments and ideas.
My spinning wheel is based upon a spinning wheel plan I purchased on the Internet. It had basic instructions and measurements with some plans. It was however good enough for anyone who likes building working machines to understand and interpret.
Purchase the plans for the Zephyr spinning wheel which is what my husband used to make me my wheel.
Making a wheel from what he had lying around his shed was the goal, not knowing how or if it would work meant he just used what he found. The fact it needed a few changes did not stop him from making me a lovely homemade spinning wheel.

If you are interested in spinning as a beginner then please join me now and then as I post my experiences, it is always more enjoyable when you have others join for the ride.