Spin Art - Singles
Oct. 26th, 2025 08:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
merrileemakesI've been posting about my exploration of handspun art yarn by over on ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
prototypediablerie. These posts are crossposted below.
Spin Art #1 - Racing stripe
This is the second yarn in Jacey Bogg's Spin Art, autowrap. It's another singles yarn with a carried thread like the first, racing stripe. Unlike racing stripe, autowrap is a well known art yarn technique with lots of examples throughout the internet.
Autowrap is one of the easiest art yarns to make. You attach a thread to the yarn you're spinning and then let it go. The thread will do whatever it wants, guided by the twist you're putting into your handspun, and you just let do it's thing.
For my autowrap yarn I decided to use these obnoxiously vibrant rolags I made at the link carding fun day. I paired them with an equally obnoxious holo pink embroidery thread which I bought from a destash, probably because it's a nightmare to actually sew with.
Spinning was very straightforward, because once the autowrap is set up you pretty much ignore it. I'm again spinning for a singles yarn, so adding less twist than I normally would (because plying your singles in the opposite direction counters some of that twist).
My autowrap thread is apparently my spirit yarn, because when ignored and left to it's own devices it acted calm and orderly and exactly like a thread that's being actively managed, like racing stripe.
Here's the finished skein.
The yarn is very cute and colourful. But I am amused at how very un-disorganised and un-chaotic my autowrap is. I've made autowrap yarns in the past and will likely make them again.
The next yarn in the Spin Art series is... this one. It's at this point that I realised that the DVD that accompanies this book only covers some of the yarns in the book. Oh well.
This yarn is stringing (or strung) foreign object. It's a racing stripe yarn, but the thread has beads strung onto it.
For this yarn I picked another set of rolags from the link carding fun day, plus some coordinating sewing thread and leftover gold beads from a cross stitch project. The beads are from very, very deep stash, probably more than 20 years. I can tell mostly because the price label on the back is for 93 cents and this tiny box of beads now costs between $3-5.50.
I decided to string the tiny beads into the very fine sewing thread when I was having a Bad Brain Day which was not an excellent decision. But I did get very good at picking dropped beads out of the carpet and after lots of faffing got all the beads onto the thread (and that room has since been vacuumed so there's no evidence to the contrary... now).
Managing the beads while also drafting the rolags into yarn was tricky. I started by counting the beads and dividing them into 4 to distribute them evenly among the 4 rolags, but they were so small and travelled so easily with the thread that it was impossible to keep the 4 groups separate.
So then I divided them into groups roughly by eye and tried all sorts of ways to keep the groups separate. The only way that when kinda worked was running the sewing thread under my foot and trapping the extra beads on the outside of my foot. But that only worked if I kept my foot in exactly the same place and with the same pressure, and caused friction against the thread that later caused it to break.
So lots of frustration and I eventually just gave up managing the beads. There's a longish section of yarn at the end of the bobbin with no beads, but I'm going so day that was strategic as it gives you a bead-free length for your cast on/chain. Or something.
This is another art yarn technique which is presented on a singles yarn but honestly would be better plyed. It would be a lot easier to muck about with beads when you're not also trying to draft and maintain twist. And then you'd have a beaded yarn that was also pretty and spiralled and more stable because it's plyed.
But I got to the end of the bobbin with minimal breakdowns and only occasionally yelling at a cat.
And here's the finished yarn. I really like it. It's mystery wool fibre from the spinners and weavers recycling room combined with some eri silk. This is from a species of silkworm that naturally produces this lustrous gold fibre. It's really lovely to work with.
I like the subtle addition of the beads too.
This is the last of the singles style art yarns in Jacey Bogg's Spin Art book, and the last I'm going to try before winding down my spinning practice for the year.
For this yarn I'm going to use this little leftover Merino/Stellina combed top and some sewing threads.
This stellina (sparkly nylon) blend is really interesting, with very fine shiny fibres of all the colours of the rainbow.
I don't have any bobbin photos apparently, because this was an unsatisfying spin. The technique is called Tornado and is basically a multi-strand autowrap yarn, with the wrap lets allowed to go crazy and spiral around the handspun yarn in a whirlwind. Jacey notes that this is a very slow and cumbersome yarn to spin, and I'd agree with that.
The three threads wanted to behave as one and nicely coil around my singles. Which is nice, but not the look the yarn is going for.
So I ended up pulling on the thread so there was slack between the wheel and the thread spools, so the thread would act a little crazy. I think this yarn and the autowrap had very orderly 'uncontrolled' wraps because sewing thread is designed to play nicely under almost any condition. I think if I used yarn I'd get a more chaotic effect.
Here's the finished skein. It's slightly overspun (I can tell because it didn't hang in a nice open loop after its bath, but rather twisted around itself), because I was faffing so much with the thread while spinning it. If I knit this yarn into a square it would skew into a parallelogram because of that extra twist. But it might be fun for weaving?
Here's a close up. Pulling the threads to make them go slack did allow for some crazyness and looping, especially the rainbow and metallic thread. But still not a 'whirlwind' of fibre.
I've now packed away my art yarn spinning wheel and I'm working on finishing up the 2 spins in progress on my Eel Wheel. I don't like to spin during the warmer months, and seasonally rotating my crafts also helps me make time for them all. But I look forward to picking up Spin Art again in May next year for some more exploration.
prototypediablerie. These posts are crossposted below. Spin Art #1 - Racing stripe
This is the second yarn in Jacey Bogg's Spin Art, autowrap. It's another singles yarn with a carried thread like the first, racing stripe. Unlike racing stripe, autowrap is a well known art yarn technique with lots of examples throughout the internet.
Autowrap is one of the easiest art yarns to make. You attach a thread to the yarn you're spinning and then let it go. The thread will do whatever it wants, guided by the twist you're putting into your handspun, and you just let do it's thing.
For my autowrap yarn I decided to use these obnoxiously vibrant rolags I made at the link carding fun day. I paired them with an equally obnoxious holo pink embroidery thread which I bought from a destash, probably because it's a nightmare to actually sew with.
Spinning was very straightforward, because once the autowrap is set up you pretty much ignore it. I'm again spinning for a singles yarn, so adding less twist than I normally would (because plying your singles in the opposite direction counters some of that twist).
My autowrap thread is apparently my spirit yarn, because when ignored and left to it's own devices it acted calm and orderly and exactly like a thread that's being actively managed, like racing stripe.
Here's the finished skein.
The yarn is very cute and colourful. But I am amused at how very un-disorganised and un-chaotic my autowrap is. I've made autowrap yarns in the past and will likely make them again.
The next yarn in the Spin Art series is... this one. It's at this point that I realised that the DVD that accompanies this book only covers some of the yarns in the book. Oh well.
This yarn is stringing (or strung) foreign object. It's a racing stripe yarn, but the thread has beads strung onto it.
For this yarn I picked another set of rolags from the link carding fun day, plus some coordinating sewing thread and leftover gold beads from a cross stitch project. The beads are from very, very deep stash, probably more than 20 years. I can tell mostly because the price label on the back is for 93 cents and this tiny box of beads now costs between $3-5.50.
I decided to string the tiny beads into the very fine sewing thread when I was having a Bad Brain Day which was not an excellent decision. But I did get very good at picking dropped beads out of the carpet and after lots of faffing got all the beads onto the thread (and that room has since been vacuumed so there's no evidence to the contrary... now).
Managing the beads while also drafting the rolags into yarn was tricky. I started by counting the beads and dividing them into 4 to distribute them evenly among the 4 rolags, but they were so small and travelled so easily with the thread that it was impossible to keep the 4 groups separate.
So then I divided them into groups roughly by eye and tried all sorts of ways to keep the groups separate. The only way that when kinda worked was running the sewing thread under my foot and trapping the extra beads on the outside of my foot. But that only worked if I kept my foot in exactly the same place and with the same pressure, and caused friction against the thread that later caused it to break.
So lots of frustration and I eventually just gave up managing the beads. There's a longish section of yarn at the end of the bobbin with no beads, but I'm going so day that was strategic as it gives you a bead-free length for your cast on/chain. Or something.
This is another art yarn technique which is presented on a singles yarn but honestly would be better plyed. It would be a lot easier to muck about with beads when you're not also trying to draft and maintain twist. And then you'd have a beaded yarn that was also pretty and spiralled and more stable because it's plyed.
But I got to the end of the bobbin with minimal breakdowns and only occasionally yelling at a cat.
And here's the finished yarn. I really like it. It's mystery wool fibre from the spinners and weavers recycling room combined with some eri silk. This is from a species of silkworm that naturally produces this lustrous gold fibre. It's really lovely to work with.
I like the subtle addition of the beads too.
This is the last of the singles style art yarns in Jacey Bogg's Spin Art book, and the last I'm going to try before winding down my spinning practice for the year.
For this yarn I'm going to use this little leftover Merino/Stellina combed top and some sewing threads.
This stellina (sparkly nylon) blend is really interesting, with very fine shiny fibres of all the colours of the rainbow.
I don't have any bobbin photos apparently, because this was an unsatisfying spin. The technique is called Tornado and is basically a multi-strand autowrap yarn, with the wrap lets allowed to go crazy and spiral around the handspun yarn in a whirlwind. Jacey notes that this is a very slow and cumbersome yarn to spin, and I'd agree with that.
The three threads wanted to behave as one and nicely coil around my singles. Which is nice, but not the look the yarn is going for.
So I ended up pulling on the thread so there was slack between the wheel and the thread spools, so the thread would act a little crazy. I think this yarn and the autowrap had very orderly 'uncontrolled' wraps because sewing thread is designed to play nicely under almost any condition. I think if I used yarn I'd get a more chaotic effect.
Here's the finished skein. It's slightly overspun (I can tell because it didn't hang in a nice open loop after its bath, but rather twisted around itself), because I was faffing so much with the thread while spinning it. If I knit this yarn into a square it would skew into a parallelogram because of that extra twist. But it might be fun for weaving?
Here's a close up. Pulling the threads to make them go slack did allow for some crazyness and looping, especially the rainbow and metallic thread. But still not a 'whirlwind' of fibre.
I've now packed away my art yarn spinning wheel and I'm working on finishing up the 2 spins in progress on my Eel Wheel. I don't like to spin during the warmer months, and seasonally rotating my crafts also helps me make time for them all. But I look forward to picking up Spin Art again in May next year for some more exploration.
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Date: 26 October 2025 07:47 pm (UTC)