Sooo I'm opening a thread here for future projects, which will hopefully help get me going and to actually finish something. Ahem. (Nothing to see here yet, sorry.)
I think my main creative endeavours will be sewing & drawing, but there also might be the occasional exceptions to that rule - there are a few things I'd like to learn, like cross stitch or needle felting. Things I've tried so far: pottery (when I was a kid), crocheting (still do), knitting (I'm not made for knitting, that much I know), spinning with a drop spindle, a little embroidery, paper crafts, making little dolls/plushies, painting & collage, comics, creative writing,... And I'm always curious to try new things!
That said, I'm now going to cut pieces of a pumpkin-to-be out of orange velvety fabric, as Spooky Season is just around the corner and my flat needs to be decorated. :)
Love this! I'll keep an eye on any creative endeavours you post. I don't think of myself as an especially creative person, but I do enjoy creative writing and recently finished a Paint By Numbers of a rainbow lion! Do share photos of your pumpkin when it's ready!
I have also decorated for Spooky Season (mostly via the medium of fake mushrooms and pumpkins in various formats) and started lighting cinnamon scented candles which make everything smell lovely.
Thank you :) And of course I'll show you The Pumpkin as soon as it's finished.
Am also looking forward to seeing more when it occurs :)
Thank you! Pumpkin's in the making. :pumpkin:
Ta-daa! :pumpkin:
It's huge, haha. Well, I enlarged the pattern to twice the original size because it looked so small when I printed it, and this is what I got... huggable pumpkin pillow!
pumpkin.jpg
That is an excellent pumpkin!
It is magnificent! :) Very squishy looking.
Quote from: Jubal on October 20, 2024, 01:42:02 PMIt is magnificent! :) Very squishy looking.
Thank you! :)
*blows dust off this thread* Ahem, I really should try to take more pictures of the creative things I do to post them on here. Anyway...
Last week I attended a course titled "Spinning with a spinning wheel for beginners"! It was a five-hours afternoon course with a very nice teacher who has been spinning & textile crafting for over forty years iirc, which is so cool. Apparently her parents were among the pioneers of organic farming & stuff in the 70s, and she now lives on a farm in Lower Austria, teaching spinning and weaving.
spinning_ef1.jpg
This is the wheel I worked with most of the time (there were two different models, this one - Sonata - and another more modern design - Fantasia - but I preferred this. Made by Kromski.) - after a brief intro and demonstration we were allowed to practice with different types of wool. Most of them were British sheep breeds, unfortunately I don't remember all the names, one of them was Romney. (Should have taken notes...) There were also German ones and one from New Zealand I think?
spinning_ef2.jpg
My first attempts at spinning! I didn't like the coarse brown wool, the fibres were rather short so it was more difficult getting an even yarn than with the longer fibres. The colour is nice though.
When we had a full bobbin we were shown how to ply, which is less fun than spinning imho... I ran into trouble far more often, lol. We had to use cotton yarn the teacher had brought for plying, since there wasn't enough time to get another bobbin full.
yarn_ef.jpg
And here's the result. It looks rather questionable, lol, but hey, I'm a beginner and at least it is recognisable as YARN. :) You can see the different types of wool in gorgeous natural colours (white/off-white, brown, and grey). The grey one was my favourite to work with, it's also very pretty (unfortunately I don't remember the name! Maybe I can find out.)
I had previously only spun with a drop spindle, years and years ago, and always wanted to learn how to spin using a spinning wheel. It was so much fun and definitely is something I want to practice and learn further. Now saving up to buy a spinning wheel some day...
Seeing this again has reminded me that I really meant to look up more about different styles of spinning wheel and how/why they differ.
Quote from: Jubal on May 13, 2026, 09:30:47 AMSeeing this again has reminded me that I really meant to look up more about different styles of spinning wheel and how/why they differ.
I meant to learn that, too (and definitely will, at some point)! Currently though I'm learning about all the different spinn-able fibres beyond the basics I already knew. There are so many sheep breeds, I wish I could pet them all, lol. I recently ordered a few samples of different wool rovings to try, I hope they arrive soon...
What I'm working with right now is Tiroler Bergschaf (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiroler_Bergschaf) (Tyrolean mountain sheep) which has rather coarse wool but it's not too itchy, and it's quite affordable compared to other materials so it's great for practicing. (And it actually comes from Tyrol, is processed there in a family-owned business, and thus supports the local sheep farmers, which is nice. They have a wide range of colours available, dyed as well as natural.)
yarn_e.jpg
This is what I did at the recent fibre arts meetup I went to, where I also very luckily got my own (2nd hand) spinning wheel, a Kromski Minstrel!! <3
In the meantime this bobbin is full and I've started another one, so hopefully I can practice plying again soon. Will share the result on here once it's done!
I learnt naalbinding a few years ago, and a sheep farmer friend offered me some wool to do go from raw wool right through to socks or something but I never got round to taking them up on the offer. Seeing this is making me want to learn spinning and do it, it looks really satisfying.
Quote from: The Seamstress on May 14, 2026, 08:16:37 PMyarn_e.jpg
Unsurprisingly I approve of the colour scheme :)
Quote from: Son of the King on May 15, 2026, 10:46:53 PMI learnt naalbinding a few years ago, and a sheep farmer friend offered me some wool to do go from raw wool right through to socks or something but I never got round to taking them up on the offer. Seeing this is making me want to learn spinning and do it, it looks really satisfying.
That's so cool! I definitely recommend spinning :) It's kind of meditative too. Naalbinding is also on my list of crafts to try. My very long list of crafts to try...
Quote from: Jubal on May 16, 2026, 09:14:11 AMUnsurprisingly I approve of the colour scheme :)
It
is a really nice colour, isn't it? I'm not sure yet what I'll make with the finished yarn, but spinning this pretty colour is fun in and of itself. :)
Tadaa...! Behold the plyed and finished yarn:
wolle1_e.jpg wolle2_e.jpg
I'm quite proud of myself, compared to my first try this one looks much more even. And the colour is so pretty! <3
I have more of the green Bergschaf roving left so will spin more of this, and I also have some more Bergschaf in different colours. There was a problem with my parcel of other wool samples so it will probably take longer to be delivered (meh) but I certainly won't run out of material in the meantime.
Daft question - does it matter whether you dye wool before spinning it or after spinning it, or can one do it either way round?
Quote from: Jubal on May 23, 2026, 02:32:50 PMDaft question - does it matter whether you dye wool before spinning it or after spinning it, or can one do it either way round?
I'm not sure either if it makes any real difference, but I've seen both methods so maybe it's just preference or depending on the effects you want? The spinning teacher I learnt from seems to usually dye the rovings before spinning, and she also sells these dyed rovings. If you dye the roving you don't 100% know how the yarn will turn out once it's spun, whereas you have more control about the colour if you dye the finished yarn? Just my guess though.
This weekend's spinning practice!
This is Corriedale (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corriedale). Wikipedia says the sheep is "white-woolled and white-faced", though there seem to be more colour variations out there, since e.g. World of Wool (https://www.worldofwool.co.uk) offers three different undyed rovings (white, brown, and grey). I got mine from a German webshop which sells World of Wool products so I guess it's the same. The colour is a richer brown IRL than in the photo, my phone camera just isn't the best...
corriedale1_e.jpg
It's nice to work with! After the rather short and coarse Bergschaf fibres I needed a bit of adjustment, Corriedale is longer and softer and thus behaves quite differently. Still a bit uneven here...
corriedale2_e.jpg
I like the colour a lot. This probably goes on the "will buy more of in future" list. :) (Only downside I guess: It very noticeably is sheep, smelling Very Much Sheep. But I hope to mitigate that a bit by washing and airing out the finished yarn.)
Hm, yeah, smell is not something I'd ever really thought much about with "raw" wool. I assume it must decrease a lot with airing.
Quote from: Jubal on June 07, 2026, 08:47:23 PMHm, yeah, smell is not something I'd ever really thought much about with "raw" wool. I assume it must decrease a lot with airing.
It's strange, I have a few samples from different sheep breeds and not all of them smell as strongly, some just very faintly. (The Bergschaf for example has a distinct sheep smell too, but it's not that noticeable unless you're very close to it.) I've no idea why, I guess maybe it could be related to how "fresh" the wool is? Or the washing process of the fleece? The Bergschaf is dyed too, while the Corriedale isn't.
I think the smell does fade with airing, at least I hope so, lol.
And here we have Herdwick (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herdwick).
I haven't tried spinning it yet, but I couldn't wait to show it off on here :) Herdwicks are my favourite sheep because they're so cute! The wool though isn't as soft and fluffy as the sheep look, so I'm not sure if I'll use it for anything clothing-related. I was so curious about how it would feel & spin that I ordered a sample. It said "40 microns" (micron = used for measuring the diameter of the fibre, the lower the number, the finer the wool). It doesn't feel as coarse as I had expected, but I guess it would still itch quite a bit when worn? We'll see how the yarn turns out.
herdwick_sample.jpg
This is also undyed, a rather pretty natural colour!
So I finished spinning the Corriedale, and thought I'd combine it with this nice Manx Loaghtan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manx_Loaghtan). A many-horned rare sheep from the Isle of Man!
It's undyed as well. The colour is called "moorit", and I like it a lot. (I realise I've said that about every natural wool colour so far, but it's true! Sheep do happen to have nice-coloured hair, lol.)
manxloaghtan_1.jpg
Here's what I've spun so far:
manxloaghtan_2.jpg
I've got a bobbin full of Corriedale and once the Manx Loaghtan is ready, I'll ply the two together.
When that is done I'm going to try the Herdwick! Will keep you updated on here, of course.
Here we go, Corriedale x Manx Loaghtan, I think it turned out fun!
I ran into a few problems while plying, the singles (i.e. the spun threads before plying) kinda unravelled or un-twisted themselves a bit, maybe I initially didn't twist them enough? I hope to find out somehow. It's tricky to get the twist right, especially when plying, so I'll definitely need to practice a lot more.
manxloaghtan+corriedale_1e.jpg manxloaghtan+corriedale_2e.jpg
Now onto spinning the Herdwick.
Today another parcel with fibre samples arrived (hee hee), containing more Herdwick, some Zwartbles, and Gotland!
Very pretty :)
All your spinning here is wool - is spinning plant fibres like linen very significantly different as a process/does it require different kit?
Quote from: Jubal on June 15, 2026, 02:45:10 PMVery pretty :)
All your spinning here is wool - is spinning plant fibres like linen very significantly different as a process/does it require different kit?
Thanks! :)
I haven't really looked into spinning other fibres yet, though I think cotton or silk aren't too different regarding equipment (?). I only know that flax is better spun using a distaff and you'll need to keep the fibres damp while spinning (which is why people have little water bowls on hand). I guess you'd have to adjust tension/twist on the spinning wheel too for different types of fibres. Right now this all seems like some Mysterious Magical Knowledge to me, but I will do my best to learn it! I plan to try at least cotton and flax at some point, will report back once I do.