Spin to Weave: The Weaver’s Guide to Making Yarn

by Sara Lamb

For spinners and weavers alike! Get in-depth information on fiber properties and color choices, as well as beautifully photographed samples. Spin to Weave is not simply a how-to-spin book, but a how-to-spin-exactly-what-you-want book. Weavers who spin their own yarns have the ability to choose fiber type, method of twist insertion (woolen, worsted), twist amount and/or direction, finishing methods, and grist. Author Sara Lamb focuses on the process of spinning for specific results, providing detailed instructions, a sampling of projects, variations, and a gallery of pieces by other spinners. Sara takes the reader to the very source of woven fabric--introducing the thought processes and concepts related to choosing fibers and how to spin them with finished fabric in mind.

Genres: Crafts, Nonfiction, Reference

144 pages, Paperback

First published June 25, 2013

Reviews

[Becky · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was just... not that informative or instructional. It's extremely repetitive, but what keeps getting repeated is mostly, "you can have complete control of the fabric if you spin your own fiber!" There wasn't a lot of actual advice on techniques and ways to get what you wanted. Mostly it boiled down to, "make lots of samples and experiment a lot and you'll figure it out." There were a couple of helpful things, but I don't feel like I took more than a small handful of things away from this read.

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

It markets itself as a how-to book for both spinning and weaving, and it honestly does neither of those things. Like another reviewer said, it's pretty nonspecific about how to get the fabric that you want or why you want one type of yarn over another. The only specific on that part is that Lamb recommends using 3 ply for rug warp and that singles will make a wavy fabric. The ultimate idea received from this book is to make tons of samples to see if you like the fabric and that you should make consistent yarn to have a consistent fabric.
The gallery in the 2nd and 3rd parts was a nice touch, but the book doesn't do what it says it does.

[Sasha · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this is a good book and I'm glad to have it in my collection, a more specific/thorough and less personal treatment of the subject is definitely still needed. In particular, the author doesn't address twist very specifically (and what could be more relevant for the spinner trying to branch into spinning for weaving?), and says that varying twist direction has little effect based on just a few samples--seems like if the only book on the subject is going to take a position which contradicts what you see everywhere else (in all the scraps of information here and there), the matter deserves a more thorough approach. This sort of relatively personal artist's book would have been much more suitable -after- that very instructive or encyclopedic book had been published.

[Judith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was interesting in that the author uses primarily her spinning wheel to achieve yarns suitable for warp and weft (in contrast to "Respect the Spindle" where that author believes that only spindle-spun yarns make suitable warp).

The first part of the book covers the spinning of warp & weft yarns, and the second, and third parts are galleries of garments made from handspun yarn.