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Tie the end around the skein and make a knot.

There is no waste in spinning, you just use the carder and fluff up the fiber again.

Mark you need to hold the fiber hostage till martin dose some work on you jumper 🤣

"...never have a massive fiber stash" famous last words 😂 BFL is one of my favorite fibers, and Gemma's color is beautiful. Save any tags or labels that come with fiber. Attach it to the yarn you make from it because, trust me, you will NOT remember where it came from or the fiber content. Keep it recorded somewhere.

This video really clicked for me when it came to trying to spin thinner: ruclips.net/video/Da0-BdNs-xw/видео.htmlsi=46xUslTxJ7NQKkA8 Some other things to try: lower the tension on your wheel while increasing the speed (thinner yarn needs more twist to hold together). Keep at it - you’re doing fantastic!! ❤

Again ? Youpiiii !

Don’t throw away your “waste” from spinning. Try finding a friend with hand cards or a drum carder and ask them to make you some lovely rolags to spin 😊

I love your love of excel!! Fellow excel geek here!! HAHA. Enjoy the spinning

Well done! The second spin looks so good😍 Keep spinning a little every day, and that West Knits MKAL is definitely in reach. You will be surprised at how quickly and dramatically your spins improve. Take breaks though. I notice my technique and the consequent yarn gets sloppy as I get tired and my concentration flags.

Practicing plying with ready made yarn is a good way. A yarn swift can skein up the yarn

Hi Martyn, fun podcast as per usual. I left a little message for you on your You Tube short spinning video and repeated it on your Ravelry message board as not too sure which place is best for messages (not very technical sorry so hope you receive it), spinning relevant. I'm at the same place as you on the Glowfrost shawl and it is a bit slow going but won't it look fabulous once its done. Best wishes Helen x

I knit rows I multiples of 5 so not always a "complete pair", but I am more comfortable doing just 5 with ribbing and multiples of 10 in stockinette.

Love ur exploration station

They are your rules so if you want to break them you can do that. And remember rules are made to be broken, lol.

You use the ends to tie the skein in a figure eight through the bulk of the yarn along with other ties, so you get four ties in total around the skein

I love this weekly updates! Thank you so much. We are at the same spot in the glowhair frost shawl, and I do agree about your'e thoughts. Have a good week!!

The WestKnits and Gemma’s weekly is just stunning and the transitions 😍

Well done Martyn! Good golly between your brioche and spinning you deserve some type of award!! Looks SO lovely! It very much depends what I’m making and what stitch pattern I’m doing as to when I can stop. If I’m honest that has prevented me from beginning some projects…..knowing that at that time in my life I just won’t be able to “muddle through” and some of my WIPs are there for the same reason. (Maybe inability to concentrate?) Sometimes just a vanilla sock is the ticket😂. I’m really enjoying the content this month…..thank you! Keep up the good work!

Martin, PLEASE cover your mic when you address your electronic assistant. It set off mine and stopped the video multiple times. I had to put down my knitting and drastically messed up my S West shawl!!!! Thank you

I got a small loom for Christmas so I’ll let you know how that goes. Looking for new ways to use my giant stash!!!

Hi Martin, I'm already looking forward for your 2026 vlogs - The Year Of The Loom! 😅😅

Martin, stick to the rule! Wink wink!

I can walk away from my knitting at any point unless in the middle of a section repeat. Love the shawl in those “sherbet colors”. Gorgeous.

Love love your spinning

Look to see how the skeins are tied up that you receive you will see what they do with the ends I think you should be able to answer that question that way.

Not a spinner but curious,couldn’t you use the waste fiber in another mix? Like recomb it together to make another fiber with the colors a bit mixed?

Omg Martyn at first I thought you were going to be spinning bee hives lol ... Can I give you some "newbie" advice from a newbie spinner? 1st thing before starting is to check the staple length ... Slowly pulling & then moving your hand further from your other hand holding the end of the fibre ... That's where you'll see the fibres start to shift apart ... 2nd I would have further divided the yellow coloured fibre to a smallisj strip because as you draft it moves out a bit & widens. 3rd with whichever hand you're feeding the yarn with hold it gently & do a slight like flick between finger & thimb to guide the fibre to twist into yarn. 4th Gently does it ... Just take a few breaths, roll your head about loosen up a bit ... It looked like you were yanking the fibre ... Don't fight the fibre ... Feel the fibre ... Fibre is your friend 💕

Do I spin? No! Do I want to spin? Again, No. Did I watch this entire episode and thoroughly enjoy it? Yes!! Martyn, I always enjoy your podcasts and vlogs. I always smile, laugh and learn something new! Good luck on your spinning journey! I'll be along for the ride!

Depending on the staple length is how far your hands should be apart for drafting. Also, make sure when you hold the fiber in your hand, hold it like if it is a baby bird in your hand. Meaning, don't have a death grip on it. It is the same with a wheel as with an e-spinner. If it's not taking up on the bobbin, check the tension of your brake band. Always keep your first spin, you will be able to see how far you have come as you get more experienced.

Congrats on your first e-spun fibre! 😊🎉

Well done, you’re doing great! My tip would be to label your skein with meterage, type of wool, grams etc. It’s so easy to forget what the skein was if it’s not labelled!

Love to watch your podcasts… your so passionate about what you do… I’m a knitter and love it for my mental health after a bereavement…

Hi Martyn, just to let you know if you are interested: we have the Ashford spinning chair and are not using it. We'd be more than happy for you to have it. I can't find your email address to message you privately but we live approx 7 miles north of Wonderwool site. If you or Mark are able to collect it its yours free of charge, or we could arrange to do a meet to give it to you. Best wishes Helen x

Well done you for sticking with it!! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Love that wagging finger saying no, no, no! 😂 you’ll be so proud when all those wip’s are fo’s!

Hi Martyn I am a spinner on a electric spinner as well as a Traveller. With the eSpinner you need to slow down the eSpinner a bit more as it isn’t a race but it’s a slow spin. But otherwise you are doing well

Congratulations!

I am very proud of you for continuing. It looks very tricky. Very tricky. The drafting seems to be the hardest part.

Wow love wat I 🙈

Oh - this was too much for my blood pressure - had to go outside and prune gooseberrys. Get a Human at a local to you spinners and weavers guild to sit with you and help you.

I have not much wanted to spin but that looks like a lot of fun! 😊

Awsome Martyn, I am also a newby spinner and it's an exciting learning curve. Don't think your knotty bits are a waste, for xmas I gifted everyone drier balls stuffed with my humpy bumpy fibre. So well done you and Santa! Look forward to following yr progress.

Nice job!

I'm loving this adventure Martyn. Depending on which craft you are going to use your handspun yarn in, may change the order of how you spin them. If I remember correctly a Z ply yarn is better for Crochet while a S ply yarn is better for Knitting. However I think it also depends on how you crochet/knit as to which way to ply works better for you.

Well done you are doing such a good job keep going 🎉

Martyn, hank you so much for sharing this. Last year for Christmas I got a wheel and this takes me back to my own frustration with tension and speed and the ruining of a beautiful bat.😒 Seeing your frustration and then preservation to keep trying is very encouraging. I gave up after a few weeks last January but you talking through the drafting more left handed really helped me connect some dots. Again thank you for sharing all of the steps! I will be sitting down to try again for sure.

Well done Martyn! These things take time and lots of practice! I kept all my first lumpy bumpy yarn and knitted squares and sewed them together to make a blanket! It’s great to look back on the lumps and remember we all have to start somewhere! If you’re buying fibre try Corriedale and Jacob which are great for learners! X

Every time I spy a video of someone jumping down the wonderful rabbit hole of spinning, my heart does a little dance. I purchased my first spindles in August of 2023. In November, I gifted myself the tiny EEW Nano2 e-spinner by Dreaming Robots. In July of 2024 I got its larger brother, the EEW6.1. May I offer a bit of advice? (Well, a lot actually so brace yourself, LOL). Just the stuff that had me struggle and that I found out the hard way how to avoid swinging from the rafters in frustration. 1. Keep at least part of that first skein. Compare it to future spins, it’ll give you a marvellous dopamine hit because you WILL see progress. Lots of it. 2. Don’t set your spinner to spin too fast in the beginning. Give yourself time to draft slowly. That speed dial will go up as you build muscle memory, experience and skill. Going slow to begin with means you can pay more attention to achieve the singles you WANT as opposed to the singles you get before you’ve built the experience and reflexes you need/want. 3. If your spinner is spinning slowly and the yarn is not feeding on, increase your tension a bit. Tension and speed need to be in balance. When I am spinning cobweb to lace weight yarns, I need loads of twist and very little tension. BUT, as I am absolutely obsessed with consistency, I want to draft slowly. As a result I need to dial down my speed… and therefore somehow the tension needs to be dialed up surprisingly much or the yarn simply won’t feed on. As an experienced spinner friend told me when I was getting frustrated: “The instruction manual can go suck eggs. You need more tension? Dial in more tension. You need less? Dial in less. That dial is meant to play with. Well then, play with it. It’s YOUR fibre, YOUR spinning speed, YOUR experience, so YOU experiment and see what works for YOU on YOUR spinner. No manual or RUclipsr, or me for that matter, can tell you which settings work for YOU.” 4. If you ‘only’ have 3 bobbins, never fill your bobbins with singles more than a little less than half if you plan on doing a 2-bobbin ply. Plied yarn always takes up more bobbin space than singles. You’ll find yourself ordering more bobbins. I got 6 bobbins delivered as a standard with my EEW e-spinners and boy, did I run out fast because newly spun yarn benefits from resting before plying. 5. Drafting: pre-draft slightly, and hold that fibre supply as if it were a fragile baby bird. It really helps. Figure out your fibre’s average staple length and never draft out further than half your staple length. And no one ever said you need to pinch out the entire top bit of the drafting triangle. Incidentally, you’re right: keep your drafting hand and your feeding hand a bit further apart. This way your fibres will slide along one another more easily instead of having you tug so hard. 6. Take breaks. When you find yourself getting frustrated, take a break. Come back to it after anywhere between 5 minutes and a couple of days, depending on your level of frustration. 7. Remember that plied yarn almost always looks better than freshly spun singles. 8. Twist while plying: my go-to is that the freshly plied yarn only twists back 2-3 times on itself on average. But that’s ME and plying bobbins that have rested overnight or longer. No need to dial up or down with your tension or speed if you don’t want to. More twist can be achieved by feeding the yarn in slower. Less twist by feeding it in faster, provided you’ve got enough tension. If the spinner is ripping the yarn out of your hand, of course dial down that tension. 9. Singles left on one bobbin? Research “plying bracelet” and ply those leftovers. As you’re a knitter you’ve probably got a ball winder, that can also be a viable option to make yourself a centre pull ball to ply off of. Mind you, a centre pull ball can be a bit of a learning curve and there can be the occasional “yarn barf”. 10. Resting bobbins: rest before plying. It’ll give you a more consistent ply. 11. Wastage due to still learning or any other reason: great for felting, stuffing, or recycle into carding if some day you get cards, combs, a blending board or a drum carder. 12. Finishing yarn: soak, squeeze out, hang to dry without a weight. Before drying you’ve got the choice of snapping or thwacking. Thwacking generally is for thicker yarn and/or more bloom. Snapping is for more delicate yarns/less bloom. No need to stick to cold water. Even alpaca with its reputation for felting can take warm or lukewarm soaking. Temperature differences will cause more felting than the actual temperature itself. Dump in water of any temperature, soak (I do 20 minutes or more), fish out, squeeze dry (spin dryer whilst wrapped in a towel works really well for me even for 100% alpaca), thwack or snap, hang to dry. Ball up only right before knitting or crocheting. 13. If you want to improve quickly, give yourself a bit of spinning time every day or almost every day. Set up your spinner somewhere you like to sit and where perhaps it can either just sit for an extended period of time, or is easier retrieved. Spin for 5-15 minutes. No need to push yourself to spin longer. You’ll have crappy spinning days and Eureka spinning days. But over a surprisingly short time period you’ll make massive progress. Consider participating in Tour De Fleece in July: join an online group or a Facebook group, with perhaps no other goal than spinning every day of the Tour and share your progress. The encouragement and support you’ll get is mind blowing. As a matter of fact, consider joining a spinning group right now. There are lots of them on social media and in my experience they’re usually a kind, supportive bunch. Your first attempts look really good. Seriously. Don’t be so hard on yourself. And remember that those first skeins make great pot holders. 100% wool is an excellent insulator, it doesn’t stick to the bottom of hot pans either which means you’ve got the makings of rustic tabletop/countertop protection as well. Other possible uses are pet blankets or any project where a bit of irregular, artsy yarn adds visual interest. I hope my totally unsolicited advice helps you and wish you lots of very gappy spinning. I’ll certainly be on the lookout for more spinning videos from you! Edit: there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that by next year, you’ll be spinning up a storm. That sweater quantity of home spun yarn is definitely a realistic goal.

Way to go!!

Not going to add to all the advice you’ve had, but just thought I’d say that I was the member of the group who had spun for the MKAL last year. I’d suggest you make that a really long term goal and just enjoy the absolute frustration of the process right now!