Handspinning yarn for a sweater quantity

All the wool is a vlog  all about handspinning yarn, processing wool, knitting, owning a wool mill, farm life and everything in between.

Ready to handspin enough yarn to knit a sweater or other big project? In this episode I share my top tips to help get you to the finish line.

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Transcript

0:01

Hello, this is Kim Beagler, owner of Youthful Fiber Farm and Mill, and I'm coming to you today to talk about hand spinning for a sweater or a bigger project, whatever it may be, but a sweater quantity plus style project. I know this can be a little daunting for some people that are used to spinning more like four or eight ounces at a time, but hand spinning for a big project is. So awesome. That finished product is amazing, so I wanna encourage you to do it and to give you some tips that I think might help before I forget. Don't forget that you can find me in all sorts of places. My website is youthful fiber farm.com. There is a youthful Patreon community where you get early bird access to fiber sales, online workshops, different things, and just a community depending on which level you wanna be at. And you can also find me on YouTube or at my blog post, I'll put all the links in the show notes, all great places to track me down. Okay, so. I am going to do this, assuming you are going to spin to a specific project that said, I do the opposite. I very rarely spin for a big project in mind. I tend to get the fiber, spin it, and then find a pattern that I think will fit it best. So. All the tips I'm about to give you, you can change up in different orders and maybe at the end, if I remember, I'll say, this is how I do it, but I'm going to go with, you have found a sweater. We're gonna say that you want to knit. We're gonna say crochet, weave, whatever you're gonna do, and you wanna hand spin for it. So we're working on the premise that you have already picked out something that you want to make and now you've got a spam for it. So here are the tips. Number one. Get fiber you like. This is important because if you're going to spin a lot of it for a big project, you wanna make sure you like it because otherwise you'll probably poop out on finishing. So get a fiber that you like. That's number one. You wanna actually have success in finishing spinning the fiber. And I should say, I don't have this in in the queue of tips, but. I do not spin all of my yarn to completion before I start a big project. I will spin maybe like two to three schemes, do some sing, of course, which we'll talk about in a minute, and then I start my project right away because for me, spinning the whole quantity, having to wait until the end. It just doesn't fit my style at this point, so I tend to start the project about halfway through my spinning and then it also encourages me to keep going in the spinning.'cause you're gonna get to a point where you're like, I don't have enough fiber. I've got to start spinning more. I don't have enough yarn. I've gotta start spinning more so I get fiber. You like and remember, you get to make the rules so you don't have to spin all the fiber first. Okay, second tip. Make sure you get enough. This is probably one of the biggest questions I get asked is how much is enough fiber for a sweater quantity? And it totally depends on the size and on the sweater and, and how you spin the yarn and all of those things. But roughly, I would say one and a half to two pounds of fiber is going to get you a sweater. One great way to figure this out is to weigh a couple sweaters that you have. In your closet, ideally sweaters that you have knit yourself. But if you don't have that, find an of the same like of a wool sweater. So a wool sweater of that you have knit yourself is the ideal world, right? But if you don't have that, maybe try some sweaters that you have purchased and weigh them. Keeping in mind like, is this like, do I love the weight of this one? As far as like it's really, really thick and dense. So that's gonna weigh more, is that what I want in my finished sweater that I'm working on? But just grabbing a couple sweaters from your closet and weighing them will give you a good idea of about how much fiber you need to spin to yarn. But one and a half to two pounds is a general, probably safe place you wanna have. It's better to have too much than to have too little, so. Get enough and get extra. That's what I would say. Okay. Tip number three, take into account what type of fiber you are spinning and what weight of yarn you ultimately want to get. So what I just mean by that is if you are, you found your project. You are looking at it and you're deciding what fiber you wanna spin for it. I always look at the recommended yarn for that pattern. So let's say I'm on Ravelry, I found this pattern. I'll look at the recommended yarn I click through.'cause Ravelry makes it easy to do that, right? I click through the yarn and I see what the fiber content is. So if it's a hundred percent wool, bam there, you know, if it's a wool alpaca blend, that's going to be very different than just the wool. And so I like to look at that because it gives me a good idea of if I'm gonna hand spin, I ideally kind of try to match what is in the recommended yarn or look at other people what they have done and what the fiber content of the yarn they have used is. Because that's gonna give you a good. Guide as to how to go. Sometimes you can even figure out like how many plys are in this yarn or the weight of it, obviously, but it does help you because different fibers are going to drape differently, not drape, all those things. And so if you did a sweater, a hundred percent wool and the recommended yarn was a hundred percent alpaca, you may get a very different. Finished sweater. So that's what I do. I'll look at a pattern. I say, okay, what's the fiber content of this? Let me take that into account when I am spinning. Sometimes you'll get super lucky and the pattern will, the yarn will actually say what breed it is. Rah, then you know you're on the right track for sure. But anyway, so that is something I like to look into. The content of the fiber that is recommended for the pattern so that you can get as close to it as possible. Obviously you may not get there all the way, but it does give you a guideline to go for. Let's do number four, swatch. And this is swatch times two. So this is where you dig into your. Calm, slow making self, and you start to spin again. We're assuming you're going to spin four projects you've already picked out. So the project may say, we need a worsted weight yarn. Okay? So what you're gonna do is spin a sample, and if you're gonna do a two ply, then you gotta have a two ply worth to do a little sample, even just, you know, basically enough to do a swatch with. If you wanna go that far again, the rules are the rules and you throw them out the window however you want. But what I would recommend is get your fiber spin to small bobbins worth. Make sure you soak that yarn after you applied it, if you're going to apply it. If not, then soak it as a single Wait for it to dry. See where you're at. Are you close to the yarn weight you need? If you are, the ideal at this moment would be. Knit, crochet, whatever you're doing, use that yarn to make a swatch, soak it. Voila. Are you close to the gauge you're supposed to be getting for that sweater again, this is like a slow, slow patient sort of a process. Yes. My cat is meowing in the background, if you can hear that. So what will we do? We're gonna swatch our little hearts out. We're going to spin. We're gonna try to get to that yarn weight that we want to get to for the pattern, and then we're going to swatch, and that gives you a, you know, so maybe you need 50 to a hundred yards of your sample so that you can do some swatches in different size needles. But make absolutely sure you spin and fly. If you're gonna fly, soak that yarn, then do your swatch soak. There you go. So now you may see why I tend to spin and then find the project. I'm not sure my patience is there for all those steps, but that is what you ideally would do because hand spun behaves differently. And it also, my cat's distracting me now. I wonder if you can hear her. It's going to behave different after you apply it and it's gonna behave different after you work with it a bit. So, swatch, swatch, swatch. Okay, the last thing. And this goes with your swatching is take notes. I beg of you. I know from experience. Take notes you're not gonna remember. And so what do you, what are you taking notes on? You're spinning. Certainly you're knitting. If you do that swatch, make sure you write down what needle sizes you're using. But before that, write down notes for what you. Are doing with your wheel because you don't want to start this project, walk away and then have no idea what you were doing. So write down notes, like if you have multiple wheels, what wheel were you on? What drive band ratio were you using? What tension did you start at? You know, if you're doing a heavier weight yarn, you may have your tension a little bit higher once you start spending that yarn so that you can get a heavier weight yarn. If you don't know what I'm talking about there. I'm pretty sure I have episodes that talk about getting the yarn you want, so go there because tension can make a big difference in how you spin plying. This is like one of the biggest things for me, like your ply count, you know, especially I, because I tend to start a project and then, or I'll start the spin and then I start a project and then, you know, time can pass. So write notes because you very much likely will not remember what the heck you were doing. Take this because I have done it before. So write your notes as you're going along so that if you walk away from it, you can come back and say, hurrah. Don't switch wheels. I would definitely recommend that. Also, do not switch wheels halfway through. If you have multiple wheels or you have a wheel and then you bought a e spinner and you're like, Ooh, I wanna use this, I would not, I would leave that project on that wheel and do something else on your New East Pinner. So. There's my tips, so we're gonna run through'em again really quickly. First one is find fiber you like. The second one is, make sure you get enough. The third one, watch your content so that you can try to match your fiber contents to the recommended yarn that is in that pattern. Swatch is the fourth one. Watch, watch, watch your little heart out. I know. I know. But you're doing a big project here. My friend Wendy recently was like, wait, Kim, have you jumped on the swatching bandwagon? Which was funny. I do not love swatching, and the only thing I really swatch for is. Big projects like a sweater, because I don't wanna have put, especially if you're hand spin, you don't wanna hand spin knit, do all this stuff and then it doesn't fit you. So watch your little heart out and finally write notes because it will help you down the road, even if you think you're gonna remember. There's a very good chance you're gonna forget, especially if this is a multi-month. Project maybe even over the course of a year project. Okay. I hope that helps. And as far as how I do it, so now you kind of get an idea. The swatching is what always throws me. It's because hands fund behaves so differently and how it's gonna bloom when you finish spinning and then applying can be pretty drastically different depending on the fiber type. That is why I tend to, obviously I would get fiber I like. I'm gonna make sure I get enough. I'm going to, for me. Find the pattern that I like after I've already spun the yarn. So I could even do a swatch, you know I wouldn't need to do the first swatch, right? I wouldn't need to necessarily have just to see how the yarn is gonna behave. But after I've spun the yarn, I could do a swatch in a needle size, I think is gonna be great for, or try a couple of needle sizes, look at that, finished fiber swatch, and then say, now let me go find. A pattern because if you've already spun and swatched, you know, okay, I can look for a sweater in that's gonna have this gauge. You can even get down to your gauge, right?'cause you've already swatched it. So that's how I do it. And then notes, notes, notes. I would start my notes as soon as I start spinning. So anyway, that's kind of how I tend to spin for a big project. But you do it how you do it. But there's some big tips that I think will help you along the way. Okay. I hope that inspires you to maybe think about on your next fiber purchase, can I get more? Or maybe I'm gonna buy a fleece and instead of just doing little bits, I'm going to do a whole project out of it. How exciting would that be? Okay. Thank you so much. That's what I've got for you this week. I hope that helps and inspires you and makes you maybe a little bit less nervous about spinning, especially knowing you don't have to spin it all before you start the project, right? Break the rules and have fun with it. Okay. Until next time, thank you so much for listening. Don't forget, check the show notes for all the places you can find me. There's also a link to a Google form where you can ask questions. I always love to hear from you all. Thank you so much everybody. Take care.