[Quiet Man Cometh]

The biggest difference I think is that machine spun yarn is a whole lot more even. Hand spun yarn can, depending on the skill of the spinner, be lumpy, of uneven texture, tension, width, etc. I'm not all that good at it, so my yarn tends to be shabby looking.

I like doing stuff with my hands so I decided to just get a drop spindle and manually spin it rather than use a wheel which my sister wants to find. You can apparently also make a drop spindle with a wooden dowel, a hook on one end to hold the yarn end, and something heavy to make it spin. It's pretty basic in theory.

I'll probably talk to my sister about what sort of fiber to use. There's machine dyed, hand dyed, which have different colour patterns, and of course, many different types of wool to buy.

Basically, you stretch the wool out a bit, spin it into a cord, and then soak it in water to shrink it and tighten the yarn, wrapping it around something to dry so that it doesn't end up in a tangled lump. At least, this is what my sister tells me. I've only spun, not done the soaking part.

I'll see if I can find her page of stuff she's done.