Autowrap Spinning

This spring I picked up a copy of Jacey Boggs book Spin Art.  She is the guru of textured spinning, constantly coming up with amazing and inspirational yarns and techniques.  The book is quite comprehensive, starting with more basic sounding techniques and building on those as the book progresses.  It also included a DVD.  I've been picking it up and flipping and reading through it every so often, but I've been too chicken to try any of the techniques in it.  Until Yesterday....

I was finally feeling a bit braver, so I plugged in the DVD and watched the first few sections on autowrapping and racing stripes (both of which involve letting a pre-spun strand wrap around the yarn that is currently being spun), tracked down some lace weight alpaca and midnight blue corriedale, and sat down at my Ashford Kiwi.  I wasn't super-keen on the look of the racing stripe, so I decided to try the autowrap technique.  The premise of the autowrap is simple. After joining the two fibres, you drop the pre-spun strand, and let it dangle on its own while it twirls itself around the yarn that you are spinning (there are some tweaks to the technique, depending on your wheel - give Spin Art a look if you have a hankering to try this at home!)  After a bit of fumbling, a few tangles, rearranging yarn and fibre, and retrying this is what I got...



The raw materials.

The first little bits.

Extreme closeup!

The finished (wonky) product.

I've gotta say, it was a little bit nerve-wracking at first, to let go and try a new technique. After working so hard to produce even, consistent yarns it felt really strange to purposely make something kinda wonky. But after the initial nervousness passed I had so much fun! I can't wait to try this technique again, with different fibres. I have some shiny sparkly metallic thread that I think needs to wrap around something purple......