Spinning Books & DVD's

NEW! Start Spinning: The Video DVD

Yes, this is a DVD, even though the title is strange, you will find a wealth of information in this unique DVD set. The Two DVD's of Start Spinning will teach you how to pre-draft and why, how to adjust your spinning wheel, how to spin a good single yarn and how to ply. Start Spinning will also show your how to master carding and combing, spinning the long draw, spinning worsted yarn, spinning from the fold and much much more! Play time 78 minutes and 66 minutes. Grab this one! Also see the book "Start Spinning" below.

NEW! Respect the Spindle Book

Portable and productive, the hand spindle has been responsible for creating the world's yarn for millennia. In Respect the Spindle, veteran spinner Abby Franquemont teaches spinners old and new how to create incredible yarn with the amazing drop spindle Respect the Spindle offers step-by-step photography with detailed illustrations, making the spindle spinning techniques clear to even the novice spinner. Profiles of drop spindle spinners from various traditions are presented in sidebars throughout the book, which introduce heartwarming and historical fiber stories from around the world. Five simple projects give spinners practice in creating a variety of yarns and patterns.

NEW! Respect the Spindle the Video DVD

Never mind the title, it's a DVD. Veteran spinner and spindle aficionado Abby Franquemont shows spinners old and new how to create volumes of incredible yarn with the amazing drop spindle. You’ll learn how drop spindle spinning works and how to spin on a simple stick, how to make a functional spindle out of almost anything, how to spin a lot of excellent yarn in an amazingly short time and how to manage the yarn supply, to ply efficiently, and to finish appropriately.

What’s the difference between woolen and worsted spinning? IS there a difference? How do you decide when to use what method? Why should a spinner care? Here to make common sense out of it all is Abby Franquemont.

You'll learn: - The short forward draw (worsted) and what kinds of fibers it’s best for. - The backward long draw (woolen) and what kinds of fibers to choose it for. - Two hybrid drafting methods, including spinning from the fold. - Important extras such as making good worsted joins and spinning ergonomics. The result? You’ll be comfortable with a wide range of drafting methods, and you will have developed a sense of when and how to use them with different fiber preparations.

NEW! All New Homespun Handknit

Liven up your knitting with handspun yarns! Make the most of your handspun! All New Homespun Handknit: 25 Small Projects to Knit with Handspun Yarn features beautiful quick-to-knit projects that use just a few hundred yards of handspun. Transform small amounts of handspun into fantastic wearables with All New Homespun Handknit. Choose from colorful caps and bags, cozy self-striping socks, comfortable and beautiful mittens, airy ponchos, warm scarves and shawls, and adorable sweaters and hats for babies and kids.

NEW! Get Spun: The Step by Step Guide of Spinning Art Yarns

Want to learn how to spin the cool, funky art yarns found in knitting boutiques! Get Spun teaches the reader to create useful yarns with structure and balance. By combining this range of skills with an unlimited range of fiber possibilities, knitters and fiber artisans can not only create the yarn of their dreams, they can re-create it and use it for their fiber-art projects. Intended for the advanced beginner to intermediate spinner, this book explores the spinning fundamentals, techniques for spinning wool and silk, spinning with nontraditional materials (fabric, silk cocoons), introducing add-ins (beads, locks, etc.), and creating exciting plying effects. In addition to the spinning techniques, Get Spun, will share techniques for easy home dyeing and using a drumcarder to blend colors and fibers.

Spin Control

Techniques for Spinning the Yarn you Want. Spin Control teaches spinners to control their handspun and make the yarns of their dreams. From soft, bulky singles to durable cabled yarns with terrific stitch definition; and from tweedy yarns with rich texture and color to serviceable 3-ply that holds up to heavy use, the sky is the limit with Spin Control.

Spinning Designer Yarns, Diane Varney   

The book you have been waiting for! Bring your spinning to the next level! Few things are as satisfying as creating the perfect yarn for a special project. This book, first printed by Interweave Press in 1987, leads the new or intermediate spinner gently into the world of super-soft luxury fibers, textured effects, and the dyepot’s miracles. Learn to apply dye to fibers in new and exciting ways, predict how novelty yarns will look in finished fabrics, blend fibers for color and texture effects, and spin singles and plied yarns in ways that will put more zip in your spinning—and your weaving, knitting, and crocheting. Corespun, bouclé, snarl, knotted, and tufted yarns will become part of your spinning repertoire, and you’ll rediscover the excitement of spinning all over again. You won't want to miss these spinning instructions. Diane Varney is an author and artist of many talents including spinning, painting, and jewelry- and pottery-making. Her current artistic focus is on making colorful dinnerware. She divides her time between homes in Baja California, Mexico, and the San Francisco area.  7 x 9 1/2, 96 pages, 16 color photographs and 28 illustrations

Spin It, Lee Raven

This little book will teach you all you want to know about handspindles and how to use them to make your very own yarn. Designed to appeal to the beginner spinner, tips and hints are provided that illustrate how easy, enjoyable, and relaxing spinning can be. Handspindles are the simple tools that help you to turn wool into yarn: from a potato on a stick, to beautiful handcrafted wood spindles and new-age titanium spindles with CD whorls. Included are complete instructions for five simple, appealing projects: a woven scarf, a knitted bunny bag, a spiral-knit baby hat, knitted fingerless mittens, and a crocheted felted brimmed hat. Once you begin spinning on a handspindle, you won’t want to stop—it’s soothing, portable, and mesmerizing. Lee Raven helped found the Bay Area Spinner’s Textile Study Group and organize the Northern California Spinner’s Gathering. She is also a former editor of Spin•Off magazine. Traci Bunkers has been editing crafts books and magazines and teaching knitting, crochet, spinning, and other fiber-related classes for several years. She is contributor to Spin•Off and owns and operates Bonkers Handmade Originals, where she sells her hand-dyed spinning fibers and yarns.Paperbound, 8 3/8 x 10 7/8, 32 pages, 20 color photographs, and 40 color illustrations

  Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook, Lynn Vogel

Learn how to use a drop spindle, how to dye unique colorways and how to create fun socks! Spin not just any old yarn or any old socks, but glorious, zany, wildly colorful yarn for perfect-fitting socks of character. Dip-dyeing, pour-dyeing, and hand-painting yarns or wool rovings is as easy as making homemade soup, whether you use commercial dyes or Kool-Aid®. If you like starting from scratch, spinning one-of-a-kind yarn is easier than you think. And the socks—a pair of well-crafted, perfectly fitting socks is one of life’s true luxuries. It’s all right here in this book. Paperbound, 8 ½ x 9, 96 pages, 101 color photographs, 35 line drawings, 6 charts

Hands on Spinning, Lee Raven
Want to teach yourself how to spin? Look no further, this book has all the spinning  instructions you need. Learn how to card, spin, ply and learn how to achieve a balanced yarn. Bonus: Section on fiber selection and preparation. Fun projects for handspun yarns included! One of the best spinning books for teaching yourself! 8 1/2 x 10 3/4, paperbound, 120 pages, color and b&w photos throughout.

The Ashford Book of Spinning, Revised Edition, Anne Field

Covers all aspects of spinning, including selection and preparation of wool, carding, using fibers, spinning techniques and all types of Ashford spinning wheels and accessories are included in this comprehensive book by Anne Field. Exciting projects for your handspun yarn are shown in full color. Also contains an introduction to dyeing and felting wool and an overview of Ashford products. 152 pages, 120 photographs. 

The Alden Amos Big Book of Handspinning, Alden Amos

This book is destined to be a classic! Great reference book for every spinner will leave no questions unanswered. Wheel designer and maintainer of textile traditions, Alden Amos – the recipient and evaluator of traditional wisdom – will guide you thru the many aspects of spinning, spinning wheels, fibers This is truly a BIG book offering decades of experience in making and handling yarn. He’ll change your spinning for the better. Spinning books come and go, this one is a keeper with it's in depth spinning instructions. 480 pages, hardcover

Handspindle Treasury

20 Years of Spinning Wisdom from Spin Off Magazine.
Spin Off has compiled 20 years of the best and most useful knowledge on hand spindles from the past issues. Everything you need to know on hand spindles use, techniques, and tricks. Detailed "how to" spinning instructions. Currently out of print
8 1/2 x 11, paperbound, 88 pages, color photos, and line drawings.

Learn To Spin Silk on a Top Whorl Spindle, Ruth MacGregor

Wow!! You will love this brand new little book with all that you need to learn to spin silk! Ruth MacGregor's  38 page book will teach you about  the different types of silk, how to spin it, ply and make a skein. Includes trouble shooting tips and instructions on how to spin alpaca and Tencel as well. Now you can teach yourself how to spin silk!!

Handspindles, Bette Hochberg

This classic gives a detailed overview of the different types of drop spindles, their origin and uses. Included chapters on the historic aspects of spindle spinning, Turkish spindles, Navajo spindles, supported spindles, as well as "how to" instructions for spinning on a drop spindle and on a supported spindle, the distaff and it's use.

Handspinners Handbook, Bette Hochberg

Another classic from Bette Hochberg. Learn how to adjust your spinning wheel, tie a drive band, draft your fiber, skein and ply it. Chapters on sheep breeds, selecting fleece, sorting and storing fleece, washing, carding as well as evaluating your spinning wheel.

Fibre Facts, Bette Hochberg

The third book from Bette Hochberg concentrates on various spinning fibers, their use and preparation. Chapters on the properties of fiber, wool, silk, cotton, linen and synthetic fibers are included as well as an analysis of yarn structure.

Spin, Span, Spun, Bette Hochberg

The fourth book of the Bette Hochberg series is packed with fact and folklore for spinners and weavers. Find out interesting tidbits about your favorite hobby.

Spinning Llama and Alpaca, Chris Switzer

Lean how to spin this lovely fiber. Instructions for cleaning, washing, preperation and blending of alpaca and llama. Learn how to dye and spin these fine fibers. Projects included.

Projects for Alpaca and Llama, Chris Switzer

The newest book from this popular author. Projects include crocheted, felted, knitted and woven items such as vests, hats, mittens, scarves, baby booties and socks. 

In Sheep's Clothing, Nola and Jane Fournier

Putting on the Dog, Carol Kroll

Dog and cat lovers, this one's for you! Once you have seen, and touched, the lovely samples inside the front cover spun from the hair of samoyed, chow, collie, and Newfoundland dogs, and a Persian cat, you will want to know how such nice yarn was made. The author explains it all. Instructions for making simple drop spindles and an improvised yarn winder are included.

Storey's Guide to Raising Llamas, Gale Birutta

Subtitled: Care, Showing, Breeding, Packing and Profiting, this book will show you how to care for these beautiful animals. Easy to raise , manageable and increasingly affordable, Llamas have become a popular backyard livestock. Learn how to: buy your first Llama, build a herd, breed, feed, can care for Llamas. 328 pages

Videos and DVDs are non returnable if shrink warp or seal is damaged or missing

Handspinning Wool, Advanced Techiques, Mabel Ross

Mabel says that when we first learn to spin, we take what we get, and try to do something with it. In this video or DVD, Mabel will change all that for you as she teaches you how to spin yarn to a predetermined size that will fit the needs of your current project. You will learn how to prepare and spin different lengths of fibers to make worsted and woolen yarns for weaving or knitting, using shortdraw and traditional longdraw techniques. You will learn how to make a plied yarn of any exact thickness with just the right amount of twist, for various purposes, & how to repeat it exactly, at any time. You will learn to spin yarns of average thickness, very thick yarn, soft knitting yarn, and extremely fine gossamer yarn for knitting lace. If you're just beginning to learn to spin, we recommend you start with "Spinning Wool-Basics & Beyond" 112 minutes

Spinning Cotton, Silk & Flax, Patzy Zawistoski

Finalist-Award for Excellence in Video Production Worldfest Houston - 1993. Each of these fibers has its own unique history, and each is available in its own unique form and each requires various modifications of spinning technique. You will learn all about this in this video. Plus you will learn about the various fiber preparations that can be purchased, plus appropriate drafting, plying and finishing techniques for each fiber. You will learn how the choice of original preparation affects the finished yarn. Each fiber will be addressed separately, allowing you to study one fiber at a time. It will be helpful if you are familiar with wool spinning, and comfortable with your spinning wheel. 111 minutes

Spinning Exotic Animal Fibers and Novelty Yarns, Judith Mac Kenzie

In this course you will learn how to spin many exotic fibers including Camel, Llama, Alpaca, Cashmere, Angora, dog rabbit and of course Quiviuet from our friend the Musk Ox. The video also includes live footage of many of these animals so that you can become better acquainted. You will also learn how to spin many types of novelty yarn using a combination of fibers and spinning techniques. Tips on buying these fibers and the best end use of the yarn is also included. 96 minutes

Spinning & Plying Textured Yarns, Patzy Zawistoski

The video and DVD spinners have been waiting for! Using seven spinning recipes, you will make cabled, knotted, soft twist singles, spirals from different singles, 3-pass boucles, core-spun boucles, and mixed twist "illegal" spirals.  With theses recipes, you will then make many varieties by using nine design factors to change the resulting yarn.  You will learn the importance of having a control yarn so you can continue creating the same yarn and how to make quick skeins and set the twist.  The section on twist analysis will help you determine how much plying each type of yarn. 117 minutes

Fiber Preperation and Multicolor Blending Techniques, Deb Menz

NEW! Spinning and Weaving the Ashford Way DVD

Learn more about the various Ashford products including spinning wheels and weaving looms. Learn how to assemble and Ashford Traditional spinning wheel, view spinning instructions, find out how to use spinning accessories, including how to card and dye fiber. Assembly instructions for several Ashford looms are shown as well as instructions for all looms. This DVD gives you a good overview of the various Ashford products. 67 minutes. Value Priced.