Yarn; from fiber to fabric

One of the main projects I have been pursuing is the creation of clothing from basic materials than can be harvested from the farm. Although I do not yet have a farm of my own, my goal is to be able to make everything from shoes to shirts using only materials I will be able to grow or harvest of my own land. This is an aspect of living off the grid that many of us do not consider as clothing is currently very accessible and cheap to everyone. This quest began with the question; "If I were unable to buy shoes, how would I protect my feet?".
 Amazed with the lack of knowledge I possessed in this area, my query quickly spread to other forms of clothing.The easiest way to answer this question is to look back on the practices our ancestors utilized before manufactured clothing was readily available. Obvious materials to be used in the solving of this dilemma include leather, cotton, cordage, and wools.The most accessible method, which I chose to tackle first, was yarn. Since I live in a cold climate, the ability to create yarn from fiber seems to be a very valuable skill.This post will aim to chronicle my efforts in this thus far.

The first step in creating yarn is to obtain fiber. This can be achieved using a large variety of both plant and animal sources including cotton, hemp, alpaca, sheep, and angora rabbits. There are different processes for the cleaning and preparing of fiber depending on the medium one chooses to work with. It is my goal to own an angora rabbit from which I can obtain fiber that requires very little processing and cleaning. However, as I have not yet achieved this goal, I obtained pre-processed alpaca fiber from the local farmers market for my first attempt in yarn making.

Since I am using a drop spindle I decided to only make a one-ply yarn.  If I were making a two-ply yarn, I would repeat this process again, twisting the yarn together.  I followed a tutorial by Megan LaCore from theartofmegan.com.

Once the drop spindle was full, and the fiber all spun, I wound the yarn into a skein onto the back of a chair and tied it off with red yarn.  White string would have been more ideal for this process, as the yarn will likely leak color.  However, I am not worried about this and I am using what I have available.

Once the skein was tied off, I removed it from the chair and immersed it in hot water for ten minutes to lock in the wind.  Afterwards, I hung it to dry, a process that took a few days.

Once the yarn is dry, the skein can be wound into a ball by twisting, and tucking one end into the other.  This makes for easy storage while waiting to be dyed or used.