[music] Hello and welcome to the Green Bean. A very
warm welcome whether you're new here or you've visited with us many times before, I'm really glad
you're here. My name is Katie and together with my little friend Jack on this channel I love to share
snippets of my creative process across a wide range of different arts and crafts as well as my
adventures out on Dartmoor which is the national park close to where we live. This episode is all
focused on spinning. I learned to spin a couple of years ago from my friend and fellow YouTuber
Becks of the Tiny Fibre Studio, I'll leave a link down below to the video where she taught me,
on camera, how to spin using a drop spindle. I've since progressed to using a Hansen Crafts
mini e-spinner which I purchased second-hand from Becks she upgraded to a new model and I
decided to give her original model a new home and I've been extremely, extremely happy with it
as a piece of equipment. My favourite thing about the mini spinner is that it's portable. You can
see I love taking it out on the moors with me and spinning outside, it's one of the things I love
about living so close to Dartmoor is being able to get out and enjoy the fresh air whether that's
walking with Jack or taking my crafts outdoors. I've got loads to share in this episode about
my progress with my spinning so settle in with a drink and a project of your own and I hope
you enjoy spending some time with me and Jack. I think when I last spoke about
my spinning possibly one or maybe both of these skeins were still works in
progress so these are both finished and let's start by chatting about them. The first one
is a skein of Appledore from John Arbon Textiles this is a colour called Spicy Pippin although it
was originally available as a colour called Mossy Bog as a limited edition which I designed for
them in 2020 I'm going to say and they decided to make it a permanent addition to the Appledore
range and it's now called Spicy Pippin. I spun this and plied it as a traditional two-ply and I think it's the most consistent
skein that I've made so far it's um... I'm extremely pleased with how this turned out,
it was the first one that I finished, Iwas like oh my goodness I actually know how to spin real
yarn now it was incredibly, incredibly satisfying. Also since we last spoke I finished the singles
and plied this skein of Polwarth and Corriedale blend called Poldale from WitchCraftyLady
and this was an absolute delight to spin, I'm pretty sure I went on and on about it when I
spoke about spinning the singles and I did this as a three-ply as my very first three-ply all
of the yarns that I'd spun up to this point had been two-ply which was lovely and satisfying
but I really wanted to give three-ply a go so I separated the fibre that I had which
was just a hundred grams into three before I started spinning um and then spun the singles
onto three separate bobbins so that I could then ply them together as a traditional
three ply and I think the finished skein is my favourite skein of yarn that I've spun so
far I really see why people love to spin three-ply the yarn is so plump and round and satisfying.
I'm really, really pleased with this one. The more I've been spinning the more I've been
getting into a lovely rhythm of finishing some singles setting them aside to rest before
plying and starting on a new spinning project while waiting for them to rest so, by the time
I've done a few days work on my next project, the singles have rested enough for me to take a
break and work on plying them and then go back to the next project and it's a nice pace to be able
to change between a couple of different projects. So, while I was resting the Poldale from
WitchCraftyLady, I picked up some more Appledore from John Arbon Textiles and this time
I wanted to try another new technique which is spinning from the fold. I am not by any means
an expert or technical spinner so I will refer you to other people who have technique focused
videos on spinning from the fold, but in brief spinning from the fold is where you simply fold
a piece of fibre around your finger and draw the fibre from a folded piece as you're drafting.
The result is that it creates a kind of more lofty airy kind of yarn even though you're still
using fibre or I was still using fibre that was a worsted preparation so it was very combed and
smooth, it was just a way of introducing more loft into the fibre. It also allows you to do
really interesting things with the colours that you can't do if you're drafting from the tip and I
really enjoyed the process. It was a little bit of a tricky thing to get my hands used to doing, it
feels quite different, and of course because the fibres are folded in half you're working with a
much shorter you're working with half the staple length so things aren't quite as stable as you're
spinning. So it took a bit of getting used to but I am so pleased with the finished result. So
I spun 100 grams of a Wonderwool special fibre called Apple Corp no surprises it's green and
I decided that to make this yarn which I was in love with go a little bit further to ply some of
it with a bit of plain Zwartbles which is a dark brown/black fibre. I just bought a very small
piece I think 30 grams from John Arbon Textiles to pair with one of the singles from my
hundred grams of Apple Corp and this marled yarn so it's a two ply marl one strand of the
Zwartlbles one strand of the Apple Corp... It's overtaken the Poldale from WitchCraftyLady
as my favourite skein that I've spun so far! I'm so pleased with how it looks and it is
definitely more bouncy and lofty as a result of spinning it from the fold. I'm absolutely
thrilled with it. The other thing is that you see less of the lustre from the fibres
because it is this more kind of airy, the fibres are going every which way, a little bit
more like a woollen spun yarn, although it's not strictly woollen spun in the fibre preparation,
it's more akin to the kind of yarns that I like to knit with and that is very exciting. So after
this marl I had a bit of the singles left over so I just plied it back on itself as a two-ply, I
made a plying bracelet and this is the result and I don't like this one nearly as much as I like
the marl, even though I'm pleased with both of them I think the marl is really something very,
very special so I'm excited to work with that. Next up I was so enchanted by the marl that I
created that I wanted to do a little bit more of a marling experiment so I picked up these two fibres
again from John Arbon Textiles, by the way I'm not sponsored by John Arbon Textiles, I do absolutely
love everything that they create but also they are local to me, their mill is based in Devon
where I live so it's it's a way of connecting with my landscape and supporting a local business
as well as just thinking that they prepare the most beautiful fibres and yarns. So these are two
shades of green obviously, nobody's going to be surprised by that, in their Devonia range which is
a 100% Devon fibre blend. I believe there's some Exmoor Blueface in there and maybe a little bit of
Wensleydale, it's got quite a lot of lustre to it. I'm sorry I can't remember the names of the
two greens but there's obviously a dark green which has some beautiful bits of yellow and
there's a tiny bit of purpley brown in here and then a lighter green which is kind of
much more yellow with a little bit of grey and I intend to spin some of these just
as a traditional three-ply because that's my new favourite way to spin yarn but I wanted
to have an experiment of combining the two not as a marl like I did with the Apple Corp but
as a marl in the singles so holding the two tops together as I drafted to combine them and create
a marled single which I will then ply on itself, so it will still be a marled yarn but a little bit
more subtle than the kind of humbug stripe of the other one. And I have now finished those singles
so I've got about I think 60 grams here and this time I was not organized and didn't weigh my fibre
before I started spinning so I'm going to have to chain ply this. That will be another new technique
for me, I've never done any chain plying before, so I will be learning how to do that and then soon
have another little green skein to share with you. And finally what's on my wheel right now is
another fibre that I purchased at Wonder Wool this year but not from John Arbon Textiles! I bought
this fibre from Katie at Hilltop Cloud whose stand was right opposite me so I was staring at all
of her beautiful fibres over the weekend and I came across this braid which is still green but
very much dyed with blacks and darker tones and I thought it would be a lovely complement
for all of the greens that I'm collecting. By the way I am working towards a project with
all of these random green skeins that I'm making, I plan to make a hand-spun blanket. I'm really
looking forward to working with all the different colours and textures and shades. It's going
to be a little bit weird and wacky because I've got yarns of different thicknesses different
plies it's all going to be a bit weird but I can't think of a better way to start working with my
hand-spun and appreciating it. I've knitted a couple of swatches with my early yarns but I
haven't used any in an actual project yet so I'm excited to get started on that but I've got a
few more yarns to spin yet. The first of which is this one from Hilltop Cloud. So this is
one bobbin of the singles finished I've got two more to go so I'm going to traditional
three ply it again. This one is a blend of Bluefaced Leicester and camel, which is
a fibre I've never worked with before, and not necessarily one that I would have chosen I
don't think, I think it falls into the category of luxury fibres and that's not really what
I'm interested in, I'm more interested in utility and durability, so it's a little
softer than I would normally choose. And something that I've learned in the process
of spinning this is what it means to work with a fibre blend of different staple lengths so
Bluefaced Leicester is a lustre breed of sheep, the staple length of the fibre is quite long,
the staple length of camel is quite short and what would have been really good for this
particular fibre would have been to spin it from the fold because if I'd folded the fibre over my
finger and drafted it I would have more easily caught a bit of both the Bluefaced Leicester
and the camel in my drafting. I didn't do that, I'm drafting it more traditionally and what's
happening as I draw the fibres out is I'm spinning all of the Bluefaced Leicester first with those
lovely long fibres and then I'm left with short camel fibres in in my hand. That's
just a bit of a learning curve for me, if I hadn't spun it this way I wouldn't have
realised that that was a thing that would happen. All it means is that there are sections
of the yarn that look a bit different there's like lustrous smooth chunks of Bluefaced Leicester
and then kind of slightly bumpy shorter staple length bits of camel, it means the yarn will be
a little bit weaker as well because the strength of the Bluefaced Leicester won't be distributed
all the way through it but by the time I ply three strands together it will be fine, it will
be functional and it's just a working process, like a teaching project for me, to get used to
my e-spinner, to get used to different fibres, so I'm not too worried about it. So as I say, I
finished my first bobbin and almost finished my second bobbin of this one and I've been really
enjoying it, it's really nice to work with something a bit different, different
textures and I'm really loving this dark moody green colour I think it's going
to go really nicely into my blanket. So I now have this amazing bouquet of hand
spun greens and green adjacent colours and these are all of the yarns that I've spun
so far, I'm incredibly proud of them. So I've got this Shetland merino blend that I spun on my
drop spindle and then plied on the espiner, I've got this Whitefaced Woodland from Cat and Sparrow
which was... I can't remember! It's a little bit over plied this one but again it's going into the
blanket it'll be fine. And then this mixed fibre blend from John Arbon which was the first that I
spun on my Hanse Crafts mini spinner which is full of special memories, I love this one. And then
of course the for skeins I've shown you today and I've got the Hilltop Cloud and
the marled singles to ply up as well so I'm definitely getting close to having enough
yarns for my blanket and I still have some oddments of green fibre that I want to spin
up to add to that project, obviously these two bits of Devonia, they're the ones I combined
for the marled singles, I also want to spin some of these on their own
to see how they turn out and I have another amount of the Poldale
from WitchCraftyLady in a different green, I'm not quite sure what to do with this, so all
of my random greens so far have been 100 gram fibre bundles or less so amounts that aren't
really massively useful for any other project this one, however, I've got 300 grams
so it's potentially enough to spin for a shawl project or something like that, but
I feel like I love this green and would like it in the project, I think because it's quite
yellowy it adds a different dimension. So I'm thinking about spinning 100 grams of
this for the blanket project and then 200 grams, but what can you make with 200 grams? That doesn't
seem like a very useful amount of yarn to have. So I'm dithering about what to do with this one but
certainly I'm getting close to having enough yarn spun to start my blanket project which means
of course it's time for me to think about what I'm going to spin next and I really think it's
time for me to spin for my first sweater project so I'm hoping that you're going to help me choose
which fibre to use for my first hand-spun garment. Now, brace yourselves, because I have two options
to consider for my first hand-spun garment and neither of them are green, I know, I don't know
who I am, but hear me out. I've spun a lot of green fibre recently and I am starting to feel
like it would be nice to spin something that was a different colour. There's that and there's also
these are the fibres that I have in my stash that are calling to me right now and they're definitely
green adjacent which means that they would coordinate very well with all the green clothes
in my wardrobe. So without further ado let me show you. The first one is this beautiful bundle this
is 500 grams of I cannot remember what breeds, it's definitely a blend of British wool
fibres from John Arbon Textiles, it's a colourway called Barn Owl which was a limited
edition special from their mill. They do limited edition special tops very frequently so
if you see someone showing off one that you like and it's no longer available just sign up to
their newsletter they will have another beautiful limited edition top sometime soon that will appeal
to you. They always do the most beautiful colours. Naturally this one appealed to me because
it's called Barn Owl and I love owls and I bought this colourway because
there wasn't a green one because it was inspired by birds and there
aren't very many green birds in the UK. Anyway I have 500 grams of this which is on the
scant side for a jumper but I'm pretty good at kind of drafting my own patterns and working with
the amount of yarn that I have when it comes to knitting garments so I would be happy to settle
for a three-quarter sleeved garment out of this, that would be fine and very wearable for me.
So that's option number one. Option number two is very similar now that I look at the two of
them together! This one has a little bit more yellow to it but it's still kind of neutral golden
kind of fibre blend also from John Arbon, also an unknown blend of British fibres, this is one
that I picked up at their open weekend last month and it's called Crouching Tiger. I've got more of
this as you can tell from the size of it. It is, I weighed it this morning, it's about 650 grams so
definitely a more generous garment quantity here. I just can't choose between the two, I realise
they're very similar. The advantage of the Barn Owl is that it's a smaller quantity so it's maybe
a little bit less daunting as my first garment spin but the advantage of the Crouching Tiger
is that there's more of it so I would have more flexibility with what kind of garment I could
knit, especially if I end up with a yarn that's kind of DK or thicker which is likely, I
think given what I've learned from my spinning journey so far and the yarns that I was most
pleased with I'm going to go for a traditional three-ply for my first garment because
I just loved the roundness of that yarn so I think that's that's the approach that
I'm going to go for so let me know what you think which fibre shall I choose? Barn
Owl or Crouching Tiger? I have no idea. There's probably a little while to wait because I
do want to finish the greens before I start this project but it's nice to have pulled these out
and get inspired and be thinking about what I'm going to be spinning and perhaps knitting for
my first hand-spun garment later in the year. That's all for now, I've got a very hot dog who's
come up for a cuddle to say hello to you so it's nice that you get to see him before we sign
off. Thank you so much for watching and if you enjoy my work and want to hear more from me I
have a newsletter and an online shop and a Patreon you can find the details for all of those
down below. Huge thanks to everyone who supports my podcast on Patreon, I could not do
it without you, thank you so much. Thank you also to Will McNicol whose guitar music you've
heard throughout this episode, you can check him out here on YouTube as well. Thank you
for watching and we'll see you soon. Bye.
