There are a lot of things I wish I had known when I started spinning. In this episode, I'm going to tell you about my top three. Hello, dear Sheepspotter. Welcome back. I am so glad that you are here. Welcome to episode 121 of the Sheepspot Podcast. I'm Sasha, and my job is to help you make more yarns you love.
And this month, continuing our focus on newer spinners and the experience of being a new spinner, we are going to talk about things I wish I had known when I started spinning that I absolutely did not know, but which would have been really useful to know. So I'm getting ready to invite a new cohort of new and self-taught spinners into spin school next month.
And I've been thinking about why learning to spin was hard for me and what I wish I had known at the time and what I think would have made the process easier. So today I want to talk about a few of those things. So let's just dive right in. So the first thing that I wish I had had when I started to spin was a conceptual map of the territory. So by this I mean I wish I had had kind of a 30,000 foot view of everything that's entailed in becoming a good spinner.
I really find learning a new thing easier when I start out with some kind of conceptual map or rubric that I can slot information into as I learn it. And with spinning, I really did not have that at all. I remember feeling like every time I turned around, there was this new vast vast bucket of knowledge to try to take in. And as an example, my spinning teacher kind of tried to cram everything from washing fleece to drum carding to drafting to plying into the few lessons that I took with her.
And honestly, at that point, I just needed to learn how to get comfortable with drafting. And in some ways, I probably would have been better off focusing on just that. But on the other hand, I often say that it was the experience of washing raw fleece for the first time, which I did do in those first few lessons, that really turned me into a spinner. I just love, you know, I love raw fleece. If you've been listening for a while, you know I love the fleeces.
I loved everything about it. I loved the lanolin. I loved the smell, the whole thing. And that experience really did help me persist through my many attempts over months to try to get my drafting under control. So at that point in my spinning journey, I really needed two things that were a bit contradictory. So, on the one hand, I really needed to know what to focus on and what to focus on in that moment and to take the time to do that.
But I also needed to get a sense of all the parts of spinning so that I could know that there was more to spinning than just the drafting that I was struggling with. And as you guys know I call all the parts of spinning the pillars of skillful spinning and it's one of the first things I teach to new spinners to give them that crucial conceptual.
Rubric basically the pillars are the big subtopics within spinning and I think that if I had had access to them then I would have understood that drafting is one bucket and fiber prep washing fleece drum carding that's another bucket applying as yet a third bucket and I could have actually decided what to focus on like I could have I would have known okay washing fleece and drum carding that goes in the fiber preparation bucket but maybe right now I'm also trying to learn how to draft.
So perhaps I should concentrate on the drafting bucket. So that leads me to the next thing that I wish I had really known at the beginning. And the second thing I wish I had known was how to take the process of spinning, break it down into a series of steps, and work on one thing at a time in an order that made sense. So in spin school, I teach the pillars in a really specific order so that each module builds on the one before it.
And within each module, I really try to break things down into the smallest possible components to allow my students to focus on one thing at a time. And I think if I had had that, or if my teacher had said to me, okay, I just want you to work on this one drafting technique until it feels comfortable to you, as opposed to like giving me raw fleece and putting me in front of a drum card or in all those other things.
I think I would have gotten drafting a lot sooner and I would have been a lot less frustrated. So we're all absorbing far more information every day than our brains were really made to handle. And I think a lot of us are teetering on the edge of being completely overwhelmed cognitively most of the time. I definitely am.
So giving students a framework in which they can take on a single manageable task, work on it, and really take the time to get it is crucial to keep them going through the parts of spinning that are hard for them. I was basically trying to learn how to understand sand a spinning wheel, draft, ply, and prepare fiber all at the same time. And when I look back on that, I think, well, you know, no wonder I was a little overwhelmed.
And so finally, I really wish that I had known. So this is the third thing. I really wish that I had known how important it is to understand how your wheel works. So I'm probably like the least mechanical person you'll ever meet. And this is an awkward confession, but I really didn't understand how spinning wheels worked for literally years.
I didn't know what that meant was that I thought I didn't try to understand it because I thought I wouldn't be able to understand it, which turned out to be false, thank goodness. But what that meant was that I didn't really understand my wheel well enough in order to help it help me spin more easily and create the yarns I wanted to make. And if I had known this, I think I would have struggled a lot less with drafting.
Because one of the things that can make drafting really hard is if your wheel is, you know, if your tension's cranked up too high, or if you're on the wrong ratio, or, you know, there are lots of things that you can do to your wheel to make it help you make spinning easier. And so I didn't know that. I didn't understand that for a really long time. And this is why I teach wheel mechanics in module one of spin school, because it's really the foundation that undergirds everything else.
So I thought it might be useful in case you are not particularly particularly mechanically minded, and you've also avoided learning how your wheel really works, for me to give you an overview of how I teach that module so you can see how you could break down this topic for yourself. So the first thing that I always have students do, and this is, it seems very elementary, but it's really important, is I think it's really important to learn the proper names of all the parts of your wheel.
And this is important so that you can understand what spinners are talking about when they're talking about wheels. And also so that if something's wrong with your wheel, you can describe it accurately to others and get help with it. Once you've mastered the parts of your wheel, I think the next step is to really understand drive systems.
Or in other words, another way to describe what a drive system is, it's how the parts of your wheel relate to one another and which parts of the wheel move other parts of the wheel. So there are these three drive systems, bobbin lead, lead, which is sometimes called Irish tension, flyer lead, which is sometimes called scotch tension, and double drive. And each of these systems has its pros and cons.
And it's really important to know what system your wheel has and to understand the strengths and the weaknesses of that system. You guys know, if you've listened to my episode on my top three wheels for new spinners that I'm really, I'm a very firm believer that people should start out on a scotch tension wheel. I just think they're the most straightforward and the easiest to adjust.
But whatever drive system you're working with, and I understand that, you know, sometimes you have a wheel, maybe you've inherited it, maybe you've got it, you know, whatever, you have a wheel. It's not scotch tension. It's important to understand the specifics of how your wheel actually works. So when you've spent some time with your wheel and you feel that you understand the drive system you have and how it works, the next step, and this is so important, is understanding take-up tension.
What it is, how it works, and how to adjust it so that the yarn is taking up onto the bobbin gently but not yanking the yarn out of your hands. This can make such a huge difference in your spinning experience and in the yarns that you make. It's a tiny little adjustment, but it can transform your spinning experience in an instant once you've got it adjusted properly. And so that's the next step is take up tension and how to adjust it.
So first, parts of the wheel. second, drive systems, third, take-up tension. And when you've mastered take-up tension, if you have a treadle wheel, then I think the next step is to go on to learning about drive ratios. Drive ratios control the amount of twist that goes into your yarn with each treadle.
So it's important to learn what the actual numbers mean and so here's a hint if you are spinning at a 15 to 1 ratio that means that you're either your flyer or your bobbin turns 15 times every time your drive wheel turns once and it's also really useful to know what ratios you have available on your wheel and to just spend a little time sampling with each of them. That will tell you so much about how your wheel works. Again, super simple little exercise that can really, really help.
So if you tackle learning about your wheel in this order, I think you'll see that each step provides a foundation for understanding the next one. You really need to know the parts of the wheel to understand the explanation of drive systems, because presumably who's ever explaining them to you is going to use the names of the parts of the wheel. So you need to know what they're referring to, you need to understand drive systems to understand how take-up tension works.
And you also need to understand drive systems in order to understand drive ratios. And understanding those will make drafting much, much easier because you and your wheel will be be really good friends by that point, and you will know exactly how to help your wheel help you. So the three things that I wish I had known when I started spinning. One, I wish I had had a conceptual map of the territory that is spinning knowledge.
I think this would have helped me organize the information I was learning, and it also would have helped me take one thing at a time. The second thing is I wish I had, in fact, taken one thing at a time, really just figured out how to break down the process into steps and then paid attention to one thing until I got comfortable with it and then moved on to the next thing.
And finally, I wish that I had taken the time much, much earlier in my spinning life to really understand how my wheel works, because knowing that just makes everything else a thousand times easier. If you are a new or self-taught spinner and you'd like to master spinning fundamentals in a step-by-step way, I created Spin School especially for you, and you can find all the details and get a notification when we enroll the next cohort at sheepspot.com slash spin hyphen school.
So be sure to check that out. Also, as always, there is a dedicated discussion thread in the flock where you can comment on this episode and discuss it with me and other listeners. The link to this thread is in the show notes for this episode, which you will find right inside your podcast app. So just open up the description for this episode, click the link, and you'll be taken right to the thread.
If you haven't yet joined The Flock, which is Sheepspot's free online community for inquisitive hand spinners, you absolutely should. You will get access to all of the freebies I've created for the podcast, as well as several self-guided spinning challenges, challenges are weekly spinning check-ins every Friday and lots more. And you can do that. You can join us by just going to theflock.cheapspot.com and signing up.
So my darling Sheepspotter, that is it for me this week. Thank you so much for listening. I will be back next week with a discussion of the most cost-effective way to get started spinning. You don't want to miss it. Until then, spin something. I promise it will do you good.