Lessons About Myself from My Advent Spinning Journey

This past November I treated myself to the fibre advent calendar from World of Wool. It took me a bit over two months to spin all of the twenty-five 50g blended fibres on my spinning wheel. Looking back, it was an enriching experience that I briefly captured with words.

My spinning improved… a lot!

Apart from a short trial with blended fibres, I‘d mostly spun pure fibres before trying advent spinning. I was comfortable with a short forward draft and had dabbled with a long draw – unsuccessfully. When I started advent spinning, I quickly realised that drafting fibre blends with the short forward draft was more challenging. On top of that, I developed pain in my drafting thumb by the third day (looking at you, sari silk!). If I wanted to keep spinning without taking longer breaks, I needed to give other drafting methods a try.

The first was a short backward draft, which I already found much easier and even faster than my go-to forward draft. Soon after, I discovered spinning from the fold, which made spinning fibre blends a breeze and, most importantly, pain-free, so I was pretty much sold on it. Later, I gained the courage to try the long draw again and was thrilled to see I could actually do it if I committed to it.

On the second day of advent spinning, I got my first tensioned lazy kate. What a difference it made! I'm never going back to an untensioned one. Period. I do wish I'd gotten a tensioned one right away – it would have saved me some money in the long run. From then on, plying suddenly became enjoyable, instead of a constant battle with a tangled mess of singles.

Over the two months, my spinning notably improved. Not only did I learn new drafting and plying techniques, but I also improved the ones already in my repertoire. For example, I fell in love with chain plying because it became really playful and didn't leave me with leftover singles – those always stress me out because I never know what to do with them.

In many techniques, I reached the point where I'm finally in control of my spinning and less dependent on good fibre preparation. The consistency of my handspun yarn improved a lot! Towards the end of the advent spinning, I even managed to deliberately spin a thicker singles.

Admittedly (and very surprisingly!) I only had a few breakages. But when they did happen, I gradually stopped feeling frustrated. Just breathe in and fix it. No drama! I managed to accept them as part of the process. Needless to say, the joins improved a whole lot as well.

Comfort does matter

This fibre advent calendar not only added a splash of colour to my spinning but also introduced me to a wide variety of fibres and sheep breeds. I loved watching how different colour combinations came together in unexpected, vibrant patterns in the finished yarn, though the tactile experience with some of the fibres proved a bit tricky.

I'm very sensitive when it comes to fibres, especially wool. I saw this as an opportunity to explore many of them and perhaps discover more breeds whose wool, other than the finest Merino, feels soft against my skin. Arguably, all of the fibres from the calendar were blended, yet I was still pleasantly surprised by the softness of some containing wools like

Polwarth,
Shetland,
Bluefaced Leicester, and
Rambouillet.

I’d love to spin them as pure fibres as well as in other blends. Cormo wool didn't appear in any of the blends, but it’d been on my list of fibres to try for a long time.

However, not all fibres were easy for me. While I can spin rougher wools, I struggled a lot. Motivating myself to spin them was really difficult, and once I started, I often rushed through just to be done. Afterwards, I felt bad for not having enough patience with such great fibre (and the poor, innocent sheep that produced it!).

It became clear to me that I have to enjoy the feel of the fibre if I want to truly enjoy both the spinning process and the final yarn. I simply cannot force myself to like a fibre that doesn’t feel good. On a similar note, I also realised that proper fibre preparation makes spinning more pleasurable – and most of the time less frustrating. In the future, I plan to prepare fibres before spinning them, even if that just means re-combing to open them up, and I'd like to get better at preparing rolags and batts.

And then there is waste sari silk. While it gives a nice tweedy look and I like the feel of it, I absolutely hate spinning it. Yes – here, I said it out loud!

Structure fosters creativity

The most unexpected side effect of spinning twenty-five different fibre blends as part of a bigger project was that I finally started taking notes. I'd always wanted to keep track of my creative projects, but somehow never managed to do it consistently. Honestly, I don't know exactly why it finally – at least for now!– clicked during the advent spinning. Since I knew I’d want to use the handspun yarns later, I was naturally prompted to jot down simple metreage and WPI (wraps per inch) notes. While doing that, I also added twist direction and the number of plies, and even created an SOP (standard operating procedure) for making nice, consistent skeins.

It started as a simple note in text form, but since my brain prefers tables, I decided to give Notion another go. Almost immediately, my spinning process became more streamlined. I began developing a small system for spinning yarn in general (which my brain absolutely loves), and unexpectedly, it opened a door to creativity. As a result, the more I experimented, the more ideas I had, and I just wanted to play. I believe the system I set up was crucial not only for fostering creativity but also for creating a structured playground for experimentation instead of chaos. Many ideas for further experiments came from combining parameters I was tracking, simply driven by curiosity about what would happen if I changed things like

twist direction
number of plies, or
drafting and plying technique.

Reflecting on it now, the mindset that remained consistent throughout the advent spinning was clear: I wasn't striving for perfection and didn't have a specific goal in mind. I was simply playing and trying new things… and you know what? My spinning got better, and my techniques improved on their own, without me deliberately trying. It all happened in perhaps the most relaxed way possible. This advent spinning turned out to be such a wonderful playground. Now I finally feel ready to focus on the more technical aspects of handspinning. Looking back, in some way I grew up and became an adult as a handspinner.

From boredom to excitement

I thought my advent project would improve my handspinning, but I didn't expect to actually learn things about myself. Well… sort of.

I wanted to enjoy the process, and this is why I opted for comfort spinning: my go-to drafting method along with a simple 2-ply. No decisions to be made. No frustration, as I’d be only using the techniques I already felt comfortable with. Boy, was I wrong! It wasn’t just the pain I developed right at the beginning; I also got bored very quickly. The third advent handspun was a 3-ply and the sixth a chain-plied yarn. And it didn't stop there.

Just like I couldn't stick with the same type of yarn all the way through, I was also struggling to stay focused solely on handspinning. Around halfway through, I was desperate to try other crafts, such as machine knitting. I knew that if I'd switched, I'd probably not have finished the advent calendar (in the foreseeable future). The major shift happened when I flipped through The Spinner's Book of Yarn Designs by Sarah Anderson, and I started experimenting with different yarn designs – the advent spinning then became really exciting and enjoyable.

My initial plan was to weave each of the advent skeins in plain weave and then sew twenty-five different zip pouches from the fabric. However, the advent spinning proved that my brain craves variety and challenge. So I'll need to come up with other ideas about what to do with all the handspun yarn.

Will I ever get another fibre advent calendar? Most likely not. Not because the quality of the fibres was bad (the fibre blends were splendid), but because it was such a huge time commitment – I have other crafts I’d like to engage with, yet so little time. Apart from that, I'd much prefer to invest that time in spinning yarn that I can actually tolerate, like and use for other projects. It’s a pity that only a handful of the twenty-five handspun skeins aren’t too itchy for me. The big lesson from all of this is that I want to be more intentional about my crafting and prioritise comfort.

Maybe it would have been slightly easier for me if there'd been more of a community feel to this advent spinning. It also might have helped if there'd been less than 50g of fibre per day. Nevertheless, it was a valuable experience, and I’m glad that I took a chance.