I’ve wanted to learn how to spin my own yarn as long as I can remember. I remember myself spinning my grandmoms spinning wheel, which was used only as decoration, and I loved seeing the wheel spin fast and the feel of the pedal under my foot. Nobody in my family knows how to spin, so there was nobody to teach, so it took years before I got the spark and started to learn the art of spinning. Thanks to modern technology and YouTube!

I bought my first wheel a year ago. Over 100 year old fella, Finnish “Kiikkalainen”. He is really charming but has his own squeaks and tricks… He was in fine condition when I got him, you could see that he’s been kept in warm and neat place, only a bit dust on but otherwise nothing wrong.

So, with much determination, I started to learn how to use the spinning wheel. Well… the start wasn’t easy. You couldn’t even pedal this spinning wheel slow enough to be able to feed the wool fast enough. Tried to spin every now and then, and then again longer pause after getting really frustrated…

But since I was really determined, I was following a Finnish spinning group in Ravelry and decided to order a spindle so I could learn with slower pace how to feed the wool. Found pretty looking top weighed spindle from Etsy. And day after that, I found a modern spinning wheel cheaply from the spinning group group, just when I had given up the idea, that I will learn spinning with spinning wheel.

So last Tuesday, I came home with Ashford Joy 2 spinning wheel. Oh boy, how easy the spinning felt! So effortless and easy… It’s great that it fits to small space, since there’s not that much extra room in our apartment and it is really silent and looks nice to me.

So, now I’ve got 2 spinning wheels and one spindle to use. And wool. I’ve got many kilos of Finn lamb wool! Raw wool, straight from the sheep owners! In many colors too, and since I wanted to learn the whole process of making the yarn from the wool, I bought new hand carders too.

All this wool processing is so relaxing and fun! Love the feel of the wool in my hands and love to see how it transforms from a “lump” of wool first to fluffy batch to be spun and then to yarn!

Hopefully soon I can show you something I’ve made using the yarn I’ve spun!