It’s holiday shopping crunch time! Last week we shared a list of great last minute gifts for knitters and crocheters, so this week we wanted to help you shop for the spinners and weavers in your life.

We’ve rounded up ten affordable items that you could gift your favorite fiber artist:

Spinning

Bobbins

Every spinner needs some bobbins to wind their freshly spun yarn onto! Gift your favorite spinner some spare bobbins made from beautiful, natural woods. (Be sure to double check to make sure the bobbin will work with their spinning wheel!)

Ashford Spinner Maintenance Kit

If your fiber artist owns an Ashford spinning wheel, an Ashford Spinner Maintenance Kit would make a great gift! The kit includes everything they need to keep their wheel in tip-top shape for its entire life. (Just ask us about our staff member who’s still spinning on a 30 year old wheel!)

Niddy Noddy

A niddy noddy is a great tool that will help keep your spinner’s newly plied yarns in nice, neat hanks. Even weavers, knitters, and crocheters find niddy noddies useful for removing kinks and elasticity from yarn.

Hand Carders

A hand carder is a great way to help a spinner expand on their creativity! With this tool they’ll be able to blend fibers together and create unique color combinations that are all their own!

Drop Spindle

A drop spindle is the perfect gift to get someone who is interested in learning how to spin but may not want to make the big investment in a spinning wheel just yet. A drop spindle will allow them to create their very first skein of handspun wool from anywhere. Pair it with some neutral roving for the ultimate beginning spinner’s gift!

Weaving

Schacht Double Ended Tapestry Beater

A tapestry beater’s teeth goes around the warp threads and is used to push down your weaver’s weft threads to help keep their weaving consistent.

Heddle Hooks

Every weaver could use some heddle hooks to make threading their heddles easier! They can also be used on a harness loom. It’s definitely one of those tools that are great to have a few extras handy!

Shuttles

A weaver can never have too many shuttles! The right tools can make all the difference in a project, and a simple, lightweight shuttle will make weaving easy on the hands and will make changing colors a breeze.

Schacht Flip Trap for Flip Rigid Heddle Loom

It’s like a hammock but for their weaving tools! This accessory for the Schacht Rigid Heddle Loom attaches into the clamp holes in the ends of the loom sides and is the perfect space for shuttles and extra bobbins. The Flip Trap is made of durable nylon canvas, suspended between hardwood bars

Harrisville Designs Cone Holder

These handy holders keep your weaver’s cones in place while they wind their warp or their bobbin. No more cones rolling away while they try to work!

And don’t forget, we have some shipping deadlines if you need to receive your items before December 25th:

• West Coast: Wednesday, December 13th at 3pm EST
• Midwest & South: Friday, December 15th at 3pm EST
• East Coast: Tuesday, December 19 at 3pm EST

If you didn’t find quite the right item here, we have plenty of choices for weavers and spinners on our website! Happy Holidays!

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

This week on Ready, Set, Knit!, we have two special guest hosts! Amy Greeman, our education manager, and Leslie Ann Bestor, our spinning and weaving manager, are filling in for Steve and Kathy who are working in Europe. This week, Amy and Leslie Ann are talking with author and spinning instructor Jillian Moreno. Be sure to listen for information about the WEBS Spinning Summit, happening in September where Jillian will be teaching, and find out more about her new book Yarnitecture! Read all about the WEBS Spinning Summit here, and reserve your space here! 

Also, today marks the first day of our 43rd Anniversary Sale! Stock up and save up to 50% on over 100 yarns and accessories now through May 31st.

Steve’s Yarn Picks of the week:

When most people think about Spring Training, they’re picturing their favorite baseball team getting ready to start the season. Here at WEBS, Spring Training means getting warmed up for all of our fantastic spinning events, like Tour de Fleece and Spinzilla! Dust off your drop spindles and wheels, grab that fiber you’ve been hoarding since Rhinebeck, and join us on Sunday, March 12th for Spring Training from 10-4!

We even have an exclusive Rookie or All Star fiber pack from Louet, which includes all the fiber you’ll need to get started AND the 2017 Spring Training tote bag!

Choose two clinics, one in the morning from 10-12, and one in the afternoon from 2-4. In between, you’re encouraged to bring a lunch and join us for some Sunday shopping, and yoga for spinners, taught by our very own Amy Greenman! Check out the full list of skill-building workshops, here!

Planning on joining us and haven’t signed up yet? Click here. The more, the merrier!

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

This week Kathy talks with Leslie Ann Bestor. Kathy and Leslie Ann talk about the upcoming Spring Training spinning event happening at on Sunday, March 12th at WEBS. Get geared up for Spinzilla later in the fall with this fun event! Join us for a full day of spinning, with special fiber packs from Louet and in-store deals!

Learn more about the event, including a list of workshops here. Sign up in store, online, or by calling customer service.

Steve’s Yarn Picks of the week:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

I love unusual little things – handy tools that tuck into pockets or small pouches, ordinary accessories that are made with a special touch, small gifts that don’t break the bank yet bring smiles and joy. Naturally, that means I delight in the holiday season and the chance to search for little treasures to surprise my family and friends. Part of the joy for me is finding something special that the giftee can use in creating things. Don’t get me wrong, nothing beats a box of bonbons, but I am a practical person and want the gift to be useful and long lasting.

With that in mind, I cast my eye around the weaving and spinning realm to see what little delights fit the bill. First there are the unsung heroines of weaving – the Floating Sues, made by Jim Hokett. These beautiful gadgets fall into the category of “that’s so simple, I could have made it myself”, which then leads to “but why would I make them when these are so beautiful and such a great deal”. Floating Sues look like a spindle with hooks on both ends and a beautiful chunk of wood in the middle. They are made to hang on floating selvages or to weight down broken warp ends. After years of dealing with canisters of pennies and fishing weights, I love the simplicity and ease of these. They come in 2 size options and if I need more weight I can add something on the bottom hook.

For spinners, we recently started carrying Snyder Spindles, wonderful little Turkish drop spindles made from beautiful woods or with colorful 3D printed arms. I wrote about them in the this post last month, so it felt like cheating to go on about them again, so I turned my gaze farther afield and spied the shimmery braids of 50/50 Merino Tencel Top from Frabjous Fibers. I know it’s a bit fluffy to stuff into a pocket, but it’s a wonderful gift, nonetheless. It’s something new and different, the colorways are dreamy and that shine! I envision spinning a lightweight 2-ply to knit into a sensuous shawl.

And for those of you in our neck of the woods, drop by the store to see the gift table up front. There are many small trinkets we brought in just for the holidays, all of them fiber-related and fun – gift tags, mugs, laser-carved wooden gauges and ornaments and more. They are here for now and in small quantities, so you will only find them in the store. Come in and take a look!

When I was at Convergence this summer I looked across the aisle and saw a table piled with what looked brightly colored UFOs. Imagine my surprise when I saw the person at the booth pick one up at start spinning yarn with one! My curiosity was piqued and I went over to check it out.

I met Scott Snyder, the spindlemaker, and he told me the brightly colored arms on his drop spindles are made on a 3D printer. Talk about a modern twist on an ancient craft! I wondered about the plastic he used and he said he uses Polylactic acid (PLA), which is derived from renewable resources like cornstarch and tapioca roots and is biodegradable.

These spindles are like a Turkish-style drop spindle, with arms that slide out of the cop, giving you a beautiful center-pull ball of handspun yarn.The Destiny features 4 arms that interlock on the shaft and is a hybrid variable weight spindle. It’s made of 3D printed plastic arms, hand turned hardwood shafts and steel screws. The combination of materials used allows for the mass to be on the outside of the spindle, to increase duration of the spin. The screws are removable so you can fine tune the weight of the spindle. You can choose either Mini or Medium depending on your size needs.

Scott also makes a Turkish Glider, available with either 3D printed arms or finely polished wood. The Glider arms swoop outward with a slight upward tilt at the end, allowing the spinner to spin a lot of fiber in one cop.

In addition to the fun and playful colors of the 3D printed spindles, we are also carrying the beautiful wood spindles that Scott makes. These also feature a shaft that is hand-turned on a lathe and have a small final at the top to hold the half-hitch. The wooden spindles are available in turkish and glider styles and, because I love anything sheep-ish, we brought in some that have sheep cut outs on the arms.

If you like to carry your spinning with you and want a beautiful, portable tool, be sure to check out our new toys!

My passion for fiber and color runs deep and I love to knit, weave and crochet, but I resisted the siren song of spinning because I was afraid. And then, two years ago I accidentally volunteered to be captain of the WEBS Spinzilla team and my worst fears were realized – I loved spinning! Down the rabbit hole I went and another fiber obsession has been added to my bag of tricks. I was afraid that spinning would distract me from weaving – and it has – but it has also given me another way to create and deepened my understanding of fiber and yarn and how they work and interact – useful information for my other creative outlets.

Of course, learning to spin opened me to a whole new world of color, texture and fiber and the overwhelming desire to have it all at my fingertips! I kept finding more things I wanted WEBS to carry and started organizing spinning events to learn more about the craft. More fiber, more spinners, life is good, right? The success of Spinzilla and the feedback from spinners at our events has brought a resurgence in spinning at WEBS. Steve and Kathy want to further strengthen our spinning area and decided to create a position to oversee that. I am honored that they asked me and excited to add spinning to my role at WEBS as Weaving and Spinning Manager.

We still have a few fiber specials from Spinzilla to take advantage of. The fiber packs we put together with Louet are a great way to learn about how to spin different breeds. Each pack has just enough of each breed  to develop your skill in spinning and enough variety to keep boredom at bay. There’s also some great colorful braids from Spunky Eclectic in the Autumn Welcome colorway she designed for us with 2 fiber options – easy to love and spin BFL or a luscious Polwarth/Mohair/Silk blend. To round out the sweet deals, we have what my friend Liz calls a box of crayons – the Lamb’s Tail Medleys from Frabjous Fibers. Also in 2 bases – superwash BFL or Merino/Bamboo/Nylon – these are a random assortment of colors with unlimited possibilities.

I am looking forward to expanding the fibers, tools and classes for spinners. Please feel free to contact me with suggestions; I want to hear what you’d like to see here!

Yes, folks, we have circled the wheel of seasons and it’s time to get geared up for Spinzilla! It is a large event (worldwide!), but I do realize that some may not have the slightest inkling of what I’m talking about, so let me explain: Spinzilla is a friendly competition sponsored by the Spinning and Weaving Group of TNNA (The National Needle Arts Association) that takes place during the first week of October. The challenge is to see who can spin the most yarn in one week, either in the team category or as an individual (“Rogue”) spinner. The underlying purpose, beyond showing the world just how amazing spinners are, is to deepen our spinning skills by pushing ourselves to spin, spin, spin – practice makes us better, right? And the fringe benefit of the event is that all the registration fees go support the NeedleArts Mentoring Program.

WEBS has sponsored a team for the last 2 years and we are looking forward to another week of fun and fiber-full gatherings. Our team is already full but we know there are many more who’d like to join the fun as well as those who want to play but don’t want the pressure of competition (um, yeah, it can get a little intense on the team – last year we spun 126,000 yards!). So we invite you to go Rogue! Sign up as a Rogue spinner on the Spinzilla site and join us at our spin ins at the store. It’s a great way to meet local spinners, get inspired and pick up some tips, and share the laughter and camaraderie of other fiber-loving folk.

We are nearly halfway through July and the Tour de Fleece. The what?! You mean you haven’t heard that spinners are spinning along with the Tour de France? We are and it’s great fun as well as a great way to get into a rhythm of spinning every day. I know it is making a big difference for me as the daily workout helps me spin more consistent yarn and improve my technique. I made some adjustments in my hand position after our workshops with Beth Smith last month and having dedicated time every day allows me to practice and become comfortable with that. On the challenge days I am working on plying, trying some new methods to spin a 3-ply. There’s still some room in our Tour de Fleece SpinShops on July 17th, so check out the event page for descriptions of the array of fantastic spinning workshops and join us for some fiber fun!

I’m also looking lustfully at some of the travel wheels we have in our spinning section, thinking about upcoming summer trips. We have 2 nice options with another on the horizon. The Louet Victoria is delightfully compact and light, folds with ease and even has a built in carrying handle. The spinning is smooth and it has accessories including a jumbo flyer for plying or creating art yarns. The Sidekick by Schacht is another contender that features its own carrying strap, folds easily into a snug shape and is a dream to spin on. Later this summer we will have a new loom from Schacht – the Flatiron, which is a folding Saxony wheel with many options for set up. I plan to try it out as soon as it arrives and will let you know how it spins.

Will you be taking your spinning on the road this summer?

Most people know about the Tour de France, but – hang onto your yellow jersey – have you heard of the Tour de Fleece? Spinners have taken it upon themselves to take their wheels (and spindles) for a spin and follow the great race. Unlike what happens in France, this Tour has no rules, just guidelines: spin each day the cyclists ride and rest on their rest days; on the mountain climb days challenge yourself with a new fiber, technique or yardage. Mostly just have fun and use the race as a way to pace yourself and spin almost daily for a month.

WEBS is hosting a team again this year, so check our thread on our Ravelry page to join and be part of the fun. We will encourage and inspire each other to spin and have fun, share pictures and chat about spinning and why we love it so much.

And because I love a party with a purpose, we’ll be hosting a day of workshops and activities on July 17th at our store in Northampton. Join us for the day and spend time learning, shopping, gathering and spinning together with the folks that understand our love of twisting fiber into yarn. The daylong event (10 am – 4 pm) will feature workshops in the morning and afternoon with a slate of 4 different classes for both time slots. Options include hand carding, Navajo plying, spinning lace yarns, long draw, fractal spinning and more. All workshops are hands on and you will be able to sign up for your choices ahead of time.

The mid-day break will provide more activities as well as a chance for lunch (bring your own and we will provide cookies and fruit). Sit and spin, relax and shop (special spinning deals for the day), chat with spinning friends old and new. And because we’re trying to pack in as much as possible (it is a challenge day for the Tour, after all), we’ve got a couple more activities. Gather ’round the wheel display to hear about why spinning wheels have different drive styles and tensioning options and learn which features work best for the types of yarns you want to spin. Or stretch out with some gentle yoga focused on the muscles we use in spinning.

We hope you can join us for our special spinning day. I know I’m looking forward to it and to spinning along with the cyclists throughout the month of July.