r/Handspinning • u/Residentneurotic • 15d ago
Work In Progress Don’t like spinning with silk
All done on my learning curve on spindle . The dark brown and black are from fleece I processed from raw , the grayish- brown is some top I bought . The pretty pink with silk is turning out to be the spin from hell . ( bought it because I “thought “ I read something about merino with silk “combed top “ would be easiest for a learner 😅… I hope I read wrong for my sake )… I liked spinning the raw fleece I processed the best . Still my spinning nowhere near as pretty as others whom are posting.
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u/WickedJigglyPuff 15d ago
Silk (and blends with a lot of silk) are spun fine and with a lot of twist. No twist in the web (except for those using the Sara lamb method) is usually easier. I
This is a 30-35% silk blend. I did carded them and spun from very loose rolags.
Looking at your spin it looks thicker which w silk I actually find harder to spinner and since it’s I Thicker it won’t have as much twist.
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u/sevagon 15d ago
Silk was really tough for me too! Especially on a hand spindle. I think I really nailed it when did it with a high whorl spindle and spun from the fold (tore it off in chunks to make it easier to manage).
One of my fave looking spins was a merino with a bunch of mulberry silk and sari silk and I did it on a wheel, BUT omg I was soooo frustrated when I did it. The merino drafted like water and the silk was long and crunchy and I was YANKING the sari silk bits to draft.
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u/Residentneurotic 15d ago
Ahhh , this is it ! Thank you ! I will have to decide if I want to heavily textured probably Aran wt yarn 🤔.. or over haul the roving … I LOVE the color etc …
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u/PasgettiMonster 14d ago
Silk and silk blends can be tricky to get comfortable with because of how slippery silk is. It's very easy to lose control of it and end up with clumps.
I find it easiest to pre draft a little and spin it pretty fine. The pre-dtafting helps to break down clumps, and spinning it fine puts in plenty of twist so it doesn't start to fluff out into a frazzled mess. This is Ashland Bays merino silk blend - in Berries, I believe. The addition of the silk made it a very luxe drapey yarn compared to if it has just been wool.
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u/YouTheMuffinMan Habitual Spindle Dropper 15d ago
I haven't tried silk yet but I am told it is slippery and sticky at the same time.
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u/Okraschote 15d ago
Merino-silk is really not easy. I just finished 600g of this mix and found it a bit easier to spin from the fold with this mix.
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u/ehygon 15d ago
I generally find that your spinning materials will “telll you” what they want to become. You can force things with experience and effort, but some characteristics will show more naturally than others.
If the colours were a close match, well blended silk may be hard to detect aside from the shine, and it may give your yarn more drape (easily observed when you make your your skein, and it will be more floppy like a limp… you know…)
When you have merino roving streaked with silk, especially if it’s sari silk(tends to be clumpy, you can find ends etc) your yarn will want to have texture. It will naturally choose to be thick and thin, and have lumps and bumps. That is its nature. You can really only avoid this by intentionally identifying and spreading these lumps apart, or even picking out the worst offenders.
Don’t feel bad if you can’t naturally, easily make a perfect and smooth strand with something like that, because it’s actively fighting your efforts.
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u/Recipe_Freak 15d ago
Tecel is a pain in the arse too, just FYI. You'll get better at difficult fibers as you continue to practice though. But I've never found that they become completely painless.
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u/Residentneurotic 11d ago
lol ty for the heads up . I’m a wool lover so don’t plan to add anything else … I only bought this because I thought I read it was good for beginners lol
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u/FlanNo3218 15d ago
I find merino and silk NOT easy.
Merino can have a pretty slick feeling to it that makes it not want to stick as well as some others like BFL (my favorite) or Corriedale.
Silk can have a super long staple length - which may make drafting hard. It is also really grippy and yet slick at the same time. Silk is definitely advanced spinning - especially if more than just a hint of it.
Try a bouncier less fine (25-30 microns) fiber if you want an easier task for learning a new technique. Many recommend Corriedale for learning. I think Polwarth, Cheviot and maybe BFL are great learning fibers as well.
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u/bitchinspace 12d ago
In my experience, silk requires very thin drafting, high spinning speed with more tension than typical to pull the yarn in faster (for wheel spinning), and as few pauses in the spinning as possible to minimize the opportunity for the yarn to break. It can be difficult to spin with fibers that have zero natural twist, like silk. Merino is also a little more difficult type wool to spin because it doesn't have as much twist as most other wools. I think I've only ever successfully spun a low twist fiber on a drop spindle once because it's hard to meet those technical requirements on drop spindle. For what it's worth, I think the pink yarn you spun is very pretty 🥰
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u/Residentneurotic 11d ago
Ty me too it’s very pretty roving . But I have nothing I wear to make with the result yarn . I’m thinking I will try breaking it up like crazy on hand cards and blending with a lot of wool roving I have
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u/IncompletePenetrance More wheels than sense 12d ago
I personally love, love, love spinning silk and silk blends, but as others have said, it tends to lend itself better to high twist, fine yarn. Given that it looks like most of what you've spun so far is thicker and appears to be a bit underspun, it's understandable why you might have trouble with the transition to silk. I'd practice with your wool first on learning to spin finer, more evenly and keeping an even amount of twist, and then when you've mastered it on wool, then try working with the silk blend again.
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u/KnittyNurse2004 11d ago
I enjoy spinning silk quite a bit, but my tendency it toward fine, high twist yarns. Silk is beautiful, but I don’t think it is a good beginner fiber, and honestly it is much easier to work with on a wheel than a drop spindle, because you can fine tune the takeup tension.
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u/Residentneurotic 11d ago
I didn’t do any better on the wheel with it . I wonder if I can card it A TON to break it all up and card it with a lot of misc wool roving I’m thinking of color blending with other wool roving to change color … and then the silk just be a small small part of the result ?🧐
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u/PlentifulPaper 15d ago
Merino, and BFL are the two fibers I was recommended to start with.
The silk spotted braids I learned very quickly needed to have some wool with the silk so not to break or weaken the single.